During the war....

[muskrat]

As DelBoy's Uncle Albert would say. But my recent interjection into the Micrometer thread got me thinking that it might be interesting to hear a few 'war stories', but on the lighter side. Funny stuff, tall tales, shaggy dog stories and so on.

I'll kick it off with another from my dad - His name was Brendan so everyone called him Bren' for short. One of the wet-behind-the-ears apprentices where he worked asked someone why he was called Bren. In true wartime factory floor style he was informed that my dad was the inventor of the Bren Gun, and was secretly a weapons genius.

Apparently the young apprentice went in total awe of my dad for many weeks until someone put him right.

 

[carphauler]

I remember taking my Nan in law to the stop smoking clinic, she was 90 at the time, the woman asked "When did you take up smoking"
Nan said "Well you remember the war"
She did quit God rest her soul.

 

[kevin o connor]

During the war, or emergency as we called it, the gas was turned off at night to save it. Now they couldnt turn it off complexly because the pipes would dry up and crack. So they had a trickle constantly going through the pipes to keep them damp. This allowed for a very low flame on the gas cooker, like a pilot light. It was illegal to use that flame for cooking. The gas company had an inspector who called into houses, much like the tv licence inspector of today. His job was to check that the kettle or pot was not warm. He was called the glimmerman. For years after the war ended he was still called the glimmerman and found it very hard to find a pub that would serve him.

 

[MunchMyStump]

My father was a young boy in Oldham during the war. Their were frequent raids by the Nazi's on industrial towns and cities of the North, Oldham being one that was targetted. So as my grandmother recounted he was a little s*it and would run into the street shouting (whenever the air raid sirens were actioned) Granellis Granellis....
Granellis was the local ice cream van and he was confusing the air raid sirens for the ice cream van chimes...

Then there is the bomb they found in a farmers field, this was a little time post war. They decided to dig it up, as you would, y'know.. what could go wrong?
Anyhow they did indeed dig it out of the field and decided that covering it in hay and setting it alight would be great fun! Next to the farm owners barn...
The thing went off and tore the barn full of hay apart setting light to everything in the vicinity apart from my Father and his cohorts who had hid behind an old plough some distance away.
They were caught though and the cost of the barn, and hay had to be paid by my grandparents and the other boys parents. All the other boy's blamed my dad saying it was his idea... This I believe as like father like son I too found a bomb when I was a boy. Instead of setting a fire around it like my father had done, I did the sensible thing and took it to school!
All true.

 

[The Landlord]

Old bloke who lived next door to us when I was a kid, had some shrapnel lodged somewhere in his body. He'd go for his medical check up & when the doctor was feeling round his body, would come across the shrapnel & say "Oh yes - that was an accident, wasn't it?"
Old bloke would reply...."No - he meant it"

 

[Len Wade]

My Dad was in the Royal Navy during the war and got stationed at Trincomalee in Ceylon (ok, Sri Lanka......) for a while on MTB's.
This particular day Dad is on deck when his boat comes into dock after a re-fit and the CPO calls out "Get the fenders ready" (or the official version thereof) and my Dad duly chucks all the rope fenders over the side:
Only problem was he forgot to secure them to the cleats onboard and they sank like stones, which didn't do much good to the boat's new paint job when it hit the harbour wall (or Dad's promotion....... )