Ern Cockshott
Transcript
Iain: The homeguard was for those deemed unfit to serve alongside the regulars. What was the British publics view of the homeguard?
Ern: a comedy outfit
Iain: Were they taken seriously?
Ern: No, not by the general public. Not by the regulars anyway.
Iain: what did people think would have happened if England had been invaded and they had put the homeguard in the line?
Ern: terror I think. (laughing) some of them were old solders of the first world war and some of them were from the Crimean war. They were not well armed either.
Iain: What made Churchill such a brilliant leader during WWII?
Ern: We were so desperate at the time I think. He was the only one that could do it. He could hold an audience together. We had no faith in anybody else. We believed in him,
Iain: how did Churchill's personality reflect the attitude of the country?
Ern: Well we were so low if a worm had gotten up and spoken we would have jumped to attention.
Iain: How did rationing affect you?
Ern: Oh not all that much, it gave a healthy life if anything. Of course it was very fair, plus that fact that there was always something on the plate, you know.
Iain: was rationing just for civilians?
Ern: Oh yeah mostly yeah. But then again there was always the old black market, eh? I don't know of anybody that was short of stuff, I don't know of anybody that was hungry. No hunger. It was fair.
Iain: what were some of the harder things to get?
Ern: When extras came in like bananas, they would go on special cards. Eggs were hard to get too; you never threw a bit away. Rationing went on way past the wars end too, several years before they took us of rationing.
Iain: How seriously did they German bombings affect those in England .
Ern: well for the first time it was a bit frightening because nobody knew what exactly to do. But as it went on everybody took it in stride, they all went to bomb shelters and the like. But the first times people wouldn't be sleeping at night because of the bombings and then they wouldn't be going to work in the morning because they had no sleep. But that all calmed down after a while once everyone got used to it.
Iain: What about the V1 and V2 rockets?
Ern: Well that was a bit scary because you didn't know where they were going to fall. And you never heard them coming.
Iain: Did the bombing have an affect on morale?
Ern: at first it did because everybody went down. I'll always remember the poster of a man and his family sitting in their shelter, and it said "the spirit of course will win the war." and I thought it's the spirit that's going to lose the war.
Iain: most of the raids were at night weren't they?
Ern: a lot of them were but a lot of them were during the day.
Iain: did you notice a change in women's roles during the war?
Ern: oh yes, they took on..I remember the first ones(women), they worked as dustmen. And they used to laugh at some of the women who looked up at them.
Iain: how did the closeness of the frontlines to England affect the morale of the citizens.
Ern. Oh it didn't have much effect. You have to remember that our leader at the time could make any disaster look like a pretty picture, you know. He was good. (laughing)
Iain: What were some of the differences and similarities between the U.S. homefront and the British homefront?
Ern: You see I mixed with so many different types (Americans), working with them you know, that I got different impressions. I met people (Americans) with loads and loads of money and loads of everything else. A bit on the cocky side they were. But you can't put that in an American textbook you know (laughing)