By now the War was very much a part of our lives. How much I understood about it I don’t know, but we were all caught up in a frenzy of patriotic endeavour. We saved silver paper from chocolate bars and cigarette packages, and went around with a ball of silver paper scraps in our pockets. We bought War Savings Stamps with our allowance, and saved Quaker Oats coupons for the Red Cross. We all had our ration books, carefully administered by Mum, but I don’t think we were too severely restricted. Mothers exchanged recipes for sugarless cakes, but still managed to put good meals on the table. Mum really got into the swing of things, preserving eggs in a big tub of Isinglass and bran (you had to test them by floating them in a bowl of water. If they floated, they were no good, or was it the other way around?) She also once made soap, starting by rendering beef fat in the oven, producing a horrible smell, and, eventually, bars of yellow soap so strong as to be unusable.

Frank was by now an avid Air Cadet, His talk was all about bombers or fighter aircraft, models of which he was forever making of balsa wood and coloured tissue paper. Chris’ drawing became serial battles, with lots of shells exploding in air, planes blowing up, and the pilot floating to land in his parachute, only to be confronted with enemy troops ready to take him prisoner. Dad had a map of Europe on which he followed the positions of the troops. He would keep us posted on the latest developments at dinner each night. We sang on the way home from school: “The White Cliffs of Dover”, and “There’ll always be an England”, lumps in our throats.

We were issued I.D. tags in case of emergency, and were given complex instructions what to do when the siren sounded. We all had a gas mask in a brown cardboard box, which was to be carried by a strap over our shoulder at all times. I’m sure if we had actually needed to use them, we would have all died of suffocation; they gave a person extreme claustrophobia and a feeling of dread, you could hardly get any air at all through the filters, and they smelled musty and rubbery. Occasionally we would have an Air Raid Drill, and, I don’t know whether this was part of the regulations or not, but Faith made us all sit under the kitchen table, where she would terrify us with scary stories until the All Clear sounded. Searchlights fingered the sky every night, and we would hear the “pom pom” of anti-aircraft guns doing target practice. Once, at the beach, we were thrilled to watch parachute troops jumping one by one from a plane, and floating through the sky. Late at night we would hear truck convoys on the Gorge Road, their headlights making an intricate, ever-changing pattern across the ceiling. They were carrying supplies to the Army camps at Albert Head. On Saturday nights they would be filled with soldiers returning from town leave, each truck drifting snatches of ribald song into the night.

Of course, the great fear was that we would be attacked by the Japanese. All Japanese families disappeared from Victoria, the Japanese Tea Garden neglected for the duration. Mum used to wonder what happened to her friend Mrs. Takahashi, who ran a silk import business in town, but I’m afraid most of us were so brainwashed by the constant flow of hate propaganda that we didn’t much care what happened to the evil Japs. Let them get what they deserved.

Gas rationing was in effect, and cars also had to have the top half of their headlights painted black. Dad used his car for business, so he got a more generous allowance than most. Our summer car trips stopped, but we still managed a leisurely drive around the waterfront most Sundays. Dad got into trouble because of his habit of always leaving his keys in the ignition. No one in Victoria would think of locking their house door, why would they have to lock their car? This was not a problem until the war, when the streets of Victoria were filled with servicemen looking for a fun night out. Now the old Ford was repeatedly stolen from the parking lot behind the store. Dad didn’t seem to mind too much; he’d have a little inconvenience for a day or so, then the car would miraculously turn up, usually in the same parking lot, and sometimes even topped up with gas! Nothing Mum said could convince him to take more care. One day, however, things got more serious. Dad took the whole family to the Willows Fair. It must have been a Wednesday, early closing at the Store. We all rushed home from school, and piled into the car, off to the annual Fall Fair. We had a great time as usual, gawking at the animals, riding the Merry-go-Round; we even got to see the Midget Twins playing on their midget see-saw. At last, cranky and exhausted, we made our way to the parking lot. No car! Again! Mum maintained an icy silence all the way home on the streetcar, with a transfer in town, and then an interminable walk from the Gorge Bridge to home.

Lucky Chris, he had fallen asleep so got carried. The rest of us stumbled home, weary and complaining. Well, this time the car did not turn up again as if by magic. It was simply gone forever. Dad had to get a new car, a Hudson Terraplane, pretty fancy to mollify Mum, but not nearly so much fun as the old Model T. The old car was not entirely lost, however. Bill Cave, who did deliveries for Dad, spotted some wheels on a different car, which looked suspiciously like those of the old Ford he’d driven so often. Sure enough, they were from Dad’s old car. Much later, the stripped chassis was found hidden in a farm woodlot on Blenkinsop Road. And eventually the engine itself turned up, being used by a fisherman on Saanich Inlet.

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The Gorge House: Measles