|
The USA has probably affected the culture of Britain more
than we are prepared to admit, I know it was an influence
on my young life, the films, books, songs, jazz and big
bands, the Ford motor company and of course during the war
the massive help they gave in food and war materials.
Well when they arrived in the flesh as you might say, to
the delight of the ladies and the dread of the men it made
for a bit of friction. You see there were lots of reasons
to dislike them, they all seemed so sure of themselves,
their uniform were of good quality and very smart and sexy,
they seemed to have lots of money and better than money
or gold were the things they could get, like ladies stockings,
chocolate, cigarettes and tobacco, a funny kind of whisky,
and food of all kinds. When a lady got herself a yank for
a boy friend the whole family benefited. Remember clothes
were on ration, you only got about twenty coupons a year
and a pair of ladies stockings were about three. Talking
about stockings well the girls used to paint their legs
with a sort of stain that dried and looked like stockings
from a distance and some one had to draw a seam line down
the back of the leg with a soft brown pencil.
Most of the long stay Americans were based on the many
air stations from which they made the dangerous day time
bomber raids in their magnificent Flying Fortresses, sadly
this was for many a very short lived occupation, so it was
the ground staff that tended to mix most with the local
people, they liked as all men do when far from home and
their mothers or wives to find a local family that would
sort of adopt them and give them a home from home and if
there was a nice young lady involved well that was a bonus.
They were the lucky ones for remember most of the home grown
young men were away doing their bit for King and Country
or if they were lucky were in some nice safe base where
they had found a home from home and may be a nice young
lady.
You may think I take a very frivolous view of the war,
I do know that for the millions of people of all nations
who had been involved in the real war it was a ghastly experience
and the holocaust of which ordinary people were not aware
of at the time was the most dreadful incident in the whole
of recorded history. That it happened in a modern Christian
country is almost beyond belief and should act as a warning
to us all to be on our guard against extremists of all kinds,
for they spell trouble and disruption at all levels and
have you noticed that when an out and out vegi comes to
your house for a meal they expect you to give them a special
meal but when you go to their house they think you should
conform to their eating habits, if they took over the government
they would make you.
Well to get back to the Americans, when they gave a dance
at one of their stations it was like a different world,
not just a little three or four piece band but an almost
professional standard army swing band that transformed the
occasion into something special, there would be streamers
and balloons, a bar with fancy drinks and lots of laughing
Yanks just enjoying them selves, no wonder we didn't like
them.
Very many of the Americans married British girls and at
the end of the war the girls went over to the States to
start a new life and even today fifty years on many British
people visit their families who left our shores in those
far off days. We still pretend to hate them, but go on loving
their films and cars and burgers and songs and in spite
of all their sins have a secret regard for them. By the
way talking about the Americans my cousin Millicent who
my grandmother made work like a skivvy married a Yank and
now lives with her family in the Florida Everglades. Pat
my sister tells me that lots of the girls in Ranby married
Americans and there is a great to-do in the village when
they come home on a visit, she also tells that German POW
used to work on the local farms and visit the village social
club to flirt with the girls if they got half a chance.
|
