Christmas in Wartime Songs of Praise

'In 1939, the world stood on the brink of war.

'As the country issued gas masks and filled sandbags,

'the citizens of Greenford in Middlesex were laying

'the foundation stone for a new church.'

Seven weeks later, Britain was at war.

Undaunted, the local community here kept calm and carried on.

By the time of its dedication, back in 1941,

the new church had faced two wartime Christmases,

and the worst of the London Blitz, and so many others had not.

'Holy Cross Church not only survived, but thrived.

'And as the present-day congregation sings Advent hymns by candlelight,

'we hear wartime Christmas memories from the home front.'

AIR RAID SIREN BLARES

'In wartime Greenford,

'as the searchlights on nearby Horsenden Hill pierced through

'the night sky to illuminate the incoming threat,

'the lights of Christmas trees in every home

'were extinguished by the blackout.'

But Christians believe that even in the darkest times,

the light of the world can never be put out.

The story of Holy Cross is not just a tale of new churches,

it's a tale of two churches.

'Throughout the 1930s, Greenford had grown from a village

'to a London suburb.

'The churchgoing population grew accordingly

'and could no longer fit into the old Parish Church.'

So, this is Greenford's mediaeval church?

-It is, yes, yes.

-It's tiny!

-It is.

It seemed to be quite early on that they decided

they wouldn't get rid of the old church,

but eventually they came up with this idea of having a new church,

but linking the two together, so they would always exist as a pair,

and always be treated as one, in a sense, one church.

Obviously the new church was needed for the numbers,

but I don't think people wanted to lose the sense of continuity

with the past by losing this older church.

And obviously there was a lot of dedication in the area

to build this new church,

because it wasn't built in the easiest of times?

Yes, yes, I mean, there was a sense other churches

were being bombed, people were being made homeless all round,

and this church somehow survived,

and could be seen to be going up

during the Blitz, and that was, yes,

a tremendous sense of expectation and hope, and comfort,

I think, to people.

I'm sure there are times when Donald Harris, the rector, thought,

"I'm never going to do this.

"I've taken on something bigger than I can cope with,"

but I suppose that's your Christian faith, isn't it?

That you can believe that you can do something, and if you just

keep going, and put the energy in and the effort, then it will come good.

-And it did.

-And it did.

Can you imagine what it must been like for those young families?

That first Christmas in their new church?

Oh, yes, it must have been wonderful, I think.

Christmas is a wonderful time anyway, but to have so many people

together under one roof, in this brand-new church, all singing

to the glory of God, must have been a really wonderful experience.

I think the feeling of Christmas during the war was that everybody

was in the same boat, nobody came to school with large presents.

Nobody came to school with spanking new clothes.

With rationing at Christmas, everyone was the same,

no-one had more than anyone else.

I remember the first wartime Christmas was a very cold one.

I'd always wanted a Christmas tree,

but my father was unemployed

for a great deal of time

when the depression was on, so we'd never been able to have one,

and I got up and I went out into the living room, and there,

on top of a very big gramophone, was a very small Christmas tree.

And I was really thrilled, and I remember that all my life.

It was a very nice, warm, friendly place here.

Oh, the whole church would be decorated with things.

And of course we took part in doing all the decorations,

which was great fun.

This has been part of my life for so long.

Christmas in wartime was very austere, in every respect.

You didn't have many presents, they could be second-hand.

Mums had an awful job trying to concoct a Christmas dinner.

We had rabbit stew.

I don't think many people would enjoy that these days,

although it is lovely, I must admit I enjoyed it, I loved it.

I can remember a rabbit pie once, and we did make Christmas puddings,

but we had lots of carrots and things grated up into the pudding,

and you know, sort of whatever suet you could get off of the butcher.

And the butcher was very careful

that it was all shared out regularly to everyone.

Parents generally tried to keep things as normal as possible,

but obviously there was rationing,

so there wasn't as much food around, and toys were limited, because

a lot of toys had been imported,

and of course that didn't happen in the war.

But we tried to celebrate.

We went to Christmas services, we went carol singing,

and we listened to the radio, because there was no television.

I mean, the only entertainment was radio,

and the programmes then, apart from ITMA,

and one or two of those popular programmes, and that was always

annoying, because the transmitters shut down when the sirens sounded,

and if that was in the middle of ITMA, it made everybody very cross.

My happiest memory, of course, would be getting married on Christmas Eve.

My boyfriend and I had been going out together for about 18 months.

Out of the blue he got this letter from the Army to say

he had to go and join up,

and that was to take place in about ten days' time.

So, we had a little powwow, and he said,

"how about getting married before I go?"

So I said, "hmm, I'm quite ready for that."

That particular Christmas, '41, obviously was very special to us,

and we had 45 years together, so that was lovely.

Although I still miss him, of course.

'Both in peacetime and in war, some are taken and some are spared.

'In Holy Cross churchyard is the war grave of a young airman,

'who made the supreme sacrifice, and of his broken-hearted mother,

'who was laid to rest with him just two years later.'

But they also served, who never fought on the frontline.

The lamps outside the church are a rare memorial

to honour the Home Guard.

Created in 1940, this band of civilian volunteers, immortalised in

Dad's Army, of course, first began to lighten the burden

on civil defence in the darkness of wartime.

'And visitors crossing the threshold are reminded that God's word

'is a lamp to our feet and a light to our way.'

'Not every place of worship in Greenford survived the war.

'The Baptist Church was destroyed by a direct hit,

'but its congregation pinned a note to the door of the ruin,

'declaring that "the church is down, but we are not".

'Another survivor was Greenford's Salvation Army Hall.

'Like Holy Cross, it had also been a new build to accommodate

'the fast-growing community.'

In wartime, the Salvationists were really

the Church militant on the home front.

The enemies of this army were loneliness and despair,

and their weapons were practical,

social and spiritual support, in the form of tea, fellowship and music.

My husband was Aubrey James Alfred Creesey,

and we got married in Greenford Hall on Boxing Day, 1941.

He had a couple of days off, and then he had to go back,

and it was four months later when we got together again.

And then we had the photos taken, both in our uniform.

The white strap is what the Salvation Army calls the "white wedding."

And that's what I had, I wanted to be a full Salvationist,

and I wanted to be a loving person for Christ.

Oh, he was a great man. We never argued hardly at all.

Well, I don't think we did.

We just seemed to fall in one another's ways, that's the truth.

He was the sergeant major of Greenford corps

for quite a number of years.

And when you're a bandsman, you have a commission,

and you live to that.

We wanted to serve God, and we did that.

In different ways. I've never played an instrument.

When he come to Greenford, he played the drum for a little while,

and then he asked if he could try an instrument,

and he tried the instrument, and that's how he went on.

Right until the passing away of him.

Oh, it means a lot, playing carols and that.

I even asked, the other year, for our one or two bandspeople to come

and play at my front door, because I couldn't get out to get to them,

and they come and did it.

Christmas is the birth of Christ, and Christ is with us all the time.

My parents had a hardware shop in South Ealing,

a western suburb of London.

My two older brothers were called up to the forces,

but prior to that I'd been one of the evacuees,

and I guess I can remember 1939 and 1940

particularly well, due to the dramatic circumstances.

On Christmas morning I can clearly remember receiving,

among other things, a box of dominoes.

And it's very nostalgic, they're all there,

to think that I last played with those 73 years ago.

I'm totally intrigued by the inscription inside the cover,

which I obviously didn't look after very well, it's quite tatty.

"To Roy, with love from Dad." Three kisses.

Now, in those days, men didn't show emotion or sentiment.

I guess Dad's stiff upper lip wobbled a little bit.

'London Inferno. Havoc wrought by mass night raids.

'This is total war now, stripped of all pretence.'

1940, I can remember it, the height of the Blitz.

I came home, I guess after nine months,

when many evacuees were coming home.

On Christmas Eve it was uncannily quiet.

All the shelterers arrived at the normal time, early evening,

expecting normality. Got to be a raid, there is every night.

The evening dragged on, no sirens, nothing.

Unbeknown to us, there was an unofficial

cessation of bombing by both sides until the 27th.

But what's going on? We didn't know that.

But finally everybody went to bed,

and we had the first peaceful night's sleep for months.

Even at that young age, I could appreciate that

people's Christian faith was very strong.

Even in the darkest days of 1940, when possibly all seemed lost.

The Battle of Britain was being fought overhead.

And yet people were still wholeheartedly the Christian faith.

We were opposed to an evil tyranny, but with right on our side,

and the will of God, we will prevail.

In December, 1943,

we had a telegram which told Mummy that my father had been wounded,

and presumably, we didn't know how serious this was, or anything.

He was being taken back to hospital in the Mediterranean

theatre of war, which we discovered was back in Egypt.

That Christmas must have been really,

really dreadful for my mother.

How Mum really coped, I'm not quite sure.

She loved him desperately, and it must have been very,

very difficult for her.

Now, when anything happens,

you make sure that the children think it's completely as normal.

We knew Dad had obviously been wounded, but we didn't know...

That was the awful thing, I think, that we didn't know how seriously.

We had no indication whatsoever.

I was a real daddy's girl. I was so close to him.

I missed him dreadfully. He was so loving.

Yes, he was an absolutely brilliant dad.

Luckily, he'd only been wounded in the finger,

shrapnel I think it was, so he was able to write.

In each of his letters that were written

around about Christmas time,

you can read into it that he would say each time,

"I miss Christmas and not seeing you."

It must have been dreadful for him. Dreadful.

I know Dad particularly had a very deep faith, very deep,

and I think that would have sustained him when he went away.

It makes you realise that faith must have

carried a lot of them through the war. Definitely.

'God bless Mummy, and Daddy, and Frank.

'Nana and Grandad, and all my aunts and uncles.'

I mean, we were taught prayers of course as children,

and I do remember that I especially had a little prayer,

not a long one, because it was cold up in the bedroom,

and I said that every night.

'And God bless all the soldiers, sailors and airmen,

'and all the men and women who are fighting for freedom. Amen.'

# I pray you'll be our eyes

# And watch us where we go

# And help us to be wise

# In times when we don't know

# Let this be our prayer

# When we lose our way

# Lead us to the place

# Guide us with your grace

# Give us faith so we'll be safe

# La luce che tu dai

# I pray we'll find your light

# Nel cuore restera

# And hold it in our hearts

# A ricordarci che

# When stars go out each night

# L'eterna stella sei

# Nella mia preghiera

# Let this be our prayer

-#

-Quanta fede c'e

# When shadows fill our day

# Lead us to a place

# Guide us with your grace

# Give us faith so we'll be safe

# Sognamo un mondo senza piu violenza

# Un mondo di giustizia e di speranza

# Ognuno dia la mano al suo vicino

# Simbolo di pace e di fraternita

# La forza che ci dia

# We ask that life be kind

# E il desiderio che

# And watch us from above

# Ognuno trovi amor

# We hope each soul will find

# Intorno e dentro a se

# Another soul to love

# Let this be our prayer

# Let this be our prayer

# Just like every child

# Just like every child

# Needs to find a place

# Guide us with your grace

# Give us faith so we'll be safe

# E la fede che

# Hai acceso in noi

# Sento che ci salverai. #

God, whose people wait in patience

for your coming in justice and bringing peace.

We long to share with you the work which will bring forward

the time when these will be a universal reality,

and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father,

the son and the holy spirit, be with you and remain with you always.

(ALL) Amen.

Not just at Christmas time, not only in time of war,

but in all the strife and stresses of the modern world,

the church lights the way for a community of individuals,

living in the hope of peace on earth and goodwill to all.

'Next week: Bill Turnbull visits St Davids in West Wales,

'and joins in the Christmas preparations,

'from the traditional, to the downright unusual.

'Plus, there's festive music from Welsh tenor, Rhys Meirion,

'and traditional carols from the city's historic cathedral.'

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