Don't You Know There's a War On? Written by Peter D. Lathan 62 Sandringham Road Roker Sunderland SR6 9QZ United Kingdom Tel.: 0191 548 7482 E-mail: plays@schoolshows.demon.co.uk ********************************************************************** SONG The Lambeth Walk SOLO When you get down Lambeth way Any evening, any day, You'll find us all Doing the Lambeth Walk CHORUS Rest of the song ANNOUNCER We interrupt this programme to bring you an important announcement from the Prime Minister, Mr Neville Chamberlain. (FX - Chamberlain's announcement of the outbreak of war) (Silence) SIMON (Singing) When you get down Lambeth way..... (Tails off, as no one else joins in) Come on! Let's have the music back! It's a party! GIRL 1 Not now! GIRL 2 This isn't the time. ALL Don't you know there's a war on? (All move around, forming into two parts, civilians and soldiers, as they sing:) SONG There'll always be an England (The soldiers are in line across the stage, the civilians on three sides.) RSM Attention! By the left - quick - march! SONG Wish me luck VOICE Winning the war begins at home! MALE VOICE The Housewife: what are her War Aims on the Home Front this winter? FEMALE 1 To safeguard the family against ills and chills FEMALE 2 To build up strong nerves FEMALE 3 To maintain energy for work FEMALE 4 To ensure restorative sleep every night WIFE 1 Oh yeah? and how am I supposed to do that with the food rations we're allowed? .............................. (LIST) WIFE 2 Dried eggs: that's the answer: "The dried egg is pure fresh egg with no additions, and nothing but the moisture taken away. It is pure egg, spray dried. "Eggs are a very concentrated form of food. They contain first class body-building material. They also help us to resist colds and other infection because of their high protective properties. "Eggs are easily digested, and for this reason are especially good for children and invalids. "Mix one level tablespoon of powdered egg with two tablespoons of water. Allow to stand for a few minutes until the powder has absorbed all the moisture, then work out any lumps with a wooden spoon. Cook as you would real eggs." WOMAN (Turning towards the audience) You could go out and have meals in restaurants without food coupons. So if you could get someone to take you out for a meal, that was really quite a good idea. Sometimes, after you had finished a nice steak, you might see a notice saying, "Horse is provided here." I think if they served horse, they had to put a notice up. I remember having a violent argument with one man, saying, "Fancy bringing me to a place where you eat horse" and he replied, "Well, you said it was very nice, so what's the difference between eating that and a cow?" Well, there isn't any really, so I went on eating horse. BOY (Also to audience) The Government banned making ice cream in 1942. That wasn't fair! GIRL The food queues used to stretch for miles. I remember one of my friends always used to have money in her purse, because her mother used to say, "Now if you see a queue, you've got to get in it, whatever it is. Here's half a crown. You're not to spend it on anything else, but whatever you see a queue for, go and get it." WIFE 2 (Back to the conversation) And clothes. One outfit a year! I mean, how can you safeguard the family against ills and chills when you're only allowed one outfit a year? Kids can grow out of their clothes in a couple of months! WIFE 1 Second hand shops. WOMAN Jumble sales. WIFE 2 Unpicking and remaking. WIFE 1 Passing them down. WOMAN Make do and mend. ALL THREE (Closing up and whispering) The black market. (FX: Air raid siren, aircraft overhead, bombs) (Everyone dives as if into shelters - below tables, huddling on the floors, crouching together for protection. As this goes on they start to sing:) SONG The White Cliffs of Dover (At the end of the song everyone starts to get up.) GIRL On Saturday 22nd February I was in the house of my friend Mary, and at about 8.30 the sirens sounded. At 9.00 we began to think that the all-clear would be heard soon when, suddenly, all the guns on earth seemed to fire at once, and the Luftwaffe machines droned overhead. About 10 minutes later we breathed a sigh of relief. The Jerries had passed over without dropping any bombs - or so we thought. Mary's mother said we had better go down in the shelter while we had a chance. Just when we were beginning to think that the Germans had forgotten about us, the guns started booming, and, once again, we could hear the drone of enemy aircraft overhead. Suddenly there was a terrific crash and the shelter door blew in and hit Mary's mother on the leg, not causing any serious injury, however. We found it impossible to remain in the shelter, because of the smoke and dust, so we climbed out and ran into the street. The scene at the other end of Rowlston Grove was one of devastation and ruin. There were women, children and wardens running to and fro carrying sandbags and telling everyone to keep calm. The fire engine came clanging down the street to put out a fiercely burning fire which had been caused by a burst gas pipe and someone's kitchen fire. When we asked a policeman what had happened, he told us a landmine had dropped. A warden came to us and asked us our names and addresses as they wanted to check on people who were missing. We then went to see how Mary's house had suffered. Though it was still standing, it was impossible to live in it again. At 10.30 pm the all-clear sounded, and Mary came with me to my house to see how it had fared. We found it in a worse condition, and my mother, who had been at my aunt's house, was just about to come for me. As it was impossible to do anything then, I went to stay the night in my sister-in-law's house and Mary went to her grandmother's. We spent the next morning excavating what was left of our furniture and clothing. I spent ten minutes trying to find my gym tunic, which had been hung in front of my wardrobe, and my brother asked me if a rather dirty-looking object on top of a wireless pole was it. So I shook the pole and eventually down came my gym slip. Needless to say, I did not wear it again until it had been cleaned. SONG Bless 'Em All VOICE 1 Throughout the country two out of every seven houses were destroyed or damaged by enemy action. In the centre of London it was nine out of ten. VOICE 2 And 60,000 people throughout the country (30,000 in London) were killed by enemy action; 87,000 were seriously wounded, and 150,000 slightly wounded. Until half way through the war more women and children were killed than soldiers. LETTER WRITER Monday 9th September, 1940 Dear Peter, I would like to have written a nice cheerful letter but things are pretty grim here. After spending all Saturday and all Sunday nights in a public shelter miles from home and feeling worn from lack of sleep, I've just been bundled down another at 5 p.m., and I'm wondering if it's going to last till 5 tomorrow morning. It's no use trying to tell what some parts of London look like. Sufficient to say it took me two hours to get to work this morning, and that after so many detours that I lost track of where I was. People are tight-lipped and strained. AFS and ARP personnel are tired, dirty and unshaven, but still fighting. You can judge for yourself when I tell you that Winsor school is just a burnt-out shell; Lathom has one corner completely gone; Woolworth's opposite the station is literally just a rubbish heap, and huge girders lie about like twisted hairpins, and a dozen other places in and around the station are just the same. And East Ham is lucky compared with scores of other areas in the whole of the eastern area of London. (Air raid siren. A teacher lines up her class.) TEACHER 1 Come along now, line up, tallest at back, shortest at front, hands on head, single file, no talking. (One boy runs ahead) NAME, walk, don't run! TEACHER 2 The children went ahead to the shelters while I got the hurricane lamp. There were eight shelters, and I finally located mine by the racket. I hadn't matches to light the lamp, so I couldn't see what was going on. There hadn't been any sirens for a while and the shelters were full of water and frogs, and the boys were catching the frogs and putting them down the girls' necks. Of course I couldn't catch them. We had four sirens that day, and each time my class were first out and last back. They also had to take their gas masks to the shelter and back again - oh yes, you were caned if you forgot your mask. GIRL Exams were going on, but people didn't swot and things like that, we were all doing other things. I'd joined the ARP, I was in the Guides, I was helping to run a cub pack, and we helped at the hospital one night a week. Revising for exams was the least of our problems. BOY 1 If the siren went before midnight, you had to be at school the next day at quarter to nine. If it went after midnight, you didn't have to be at school till dinner time. SONG: Lilli Marlene LETTER WRITER Tuesday I tried to get this finished yesterday but it was impossible. By the time I'd had something to eat last evening, the horror had started again. Nothing I could say could faintly describe the terror that fills everyone. Every crumbling crash seems to mean the next one is going to be overhead. The din is nerve-wracking and unending - no respite - no sleep - only the company of your own deadly imagination, and as you look round you see everyone is thinking and dreading what you are. You try to do something but it dies in your hands. Some lucky ones manage to find room to stretch out and they sleep fitfully, only to wake pale and nervous as a particularly close one makes everything rock and heave. What can I say that will give you a real picture? It's hopeless to try. Today still no gas, no electricity in the morning because the East and West Ham power stations were hit, no transport, no milk, only a skeleton post. No school today, all teachers detailed off to help with the soul-destroying job of emergency relief. I was sent to the Methodist Hall in Sixth Avenue. There I had to take the names of homeless people, provide food (without gas), and try to beg, borrow or steal transport to get them to somewhere where they can find a roof. I won't tell you of the harrowing sights and stories. At six o'clock I was relieved and tried to get home, but too late. A wave of bombers with fighter escorts passed right across as I pedalled like mad. It's just gone 9 o'clock and we're waiting for the usual nightmare to begin. I' forcing myself to write on to keep me from listening to the waves of bombers passing. Three have gone by already, whether ones of hundreds I can't tell, but the old cool indifference is gone. The number of people who stay in houses during raids has grown even less. People are no longer ashamed of their fear, and the shelters are full to suffocation. The death roll of those killed in public shelters must be terrific. Here goes another wave of bombers and the staccato of machine-gun fire. I must try to get some sleep now, although the noise doesn't sound like a restful lullaby. I hope I can finish this and send it off in the morning. SONG: Much Binding in the Marsh BETTY JONES We used to live from one news bulletin to the other. Everyone used to go straight into the house and switch on the radio. You listened to the radio because the papers were so thin, because of the paper shortage, that there was nothing in them. The day we were married, we asked the taxi to fetch us from the restaurant at six o'clock. We were coming down the stairs and the best man came rushing up and said, "For God's sake, don't come down yet: they're all glued to the radio, listening to the 6 o'clock news." And we had to stand and wait at the top of the stairs for quarter of an hour, waiting for the blasted news to finish, before we were allowed to go away. LETTER WRITER Wednesday This morning on duty at Herbert Read clearing house. On the way past St Gabriel's Mr Sands called out to stop me - aerial torpedo on Belgrave Road - still getting the dead out. In East Ham Alec Ford stopped me - public shelter gone in High Street - haven't got to the bodies yet - and so it goes on. At the clearing station the refugees panicked during the night and refused to stay, and threatened to sit on the debris of their homes if they weren't evacuated at once. The officer in charge is almost hysterical with fatigue and nerve strain. I'm sorry to have written so depressing a letter, but I've written cheerfully to people who have families in London, and the words have stuck in my throat, and it does me good to loosen up a bit. How long we shall be able to keep a stiff upper lip I don't know. Trying to write in an atmosphere of sobbing women and men too is a little difficult, and when you think it may be your turn next, it becomes a little futile to think at all. Write soon. I've not received a word for days from anywhere, and it makes me feel more hemmed in than ever. Best wishes. SONG: We'll Meet Again MOTHER Winter 1941. A poem for my children How far, how far has this war eaten Into the minds of men? Not meaning who will be beaten Or who will win, But how will the hating stop, the loving begin? And the wishing to be loved, when will it come again? How deep, how deep are we drowned in sorrow? Will the tears ever cease? Will men stop killing tomorrow Who kill today? For years the guns and aeroplanes have their way And how will their way turn into the way of peace? (FX: the all-clear sounds.) The Last Post ***************************************************************************** Plays by Peter D. Lathan Copyright notice The plays in this download area or on diskette are all copyright Peter D. Lathan. They may be printed out, copied onto a diskette or onto a hard disk, or even onto CD-ROM, but no performance may be given without written permission. This permission will normally be granted only on payment of the appropriate fee. Fees Fees for the performance of these plays are dependent upon what the producing organisation is, the capacity of the venue and the number of performances to be given. An application form follows. Please complete and return it before rehearsals begin. 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