Playing in peace and war

That 'big thing' was an air-raid shelter, and for Jack and his friends it was just another part of their playground.

"It was basically a brick building. It had an entrance and it had a sort of tunnel and was very thick. I always remember the thickness of the walls, if you like. That was in 1943 to 1944. It was probably still there in 1945 to 1946, and I fondly remember playing in that air-raid shelter," he said, adding: "It was probably the safest place in the city."

In those days it was also 'a big thing' to go down to the quay to see the boats.

"There were Naval vessels there of all nationalities in those days. I was only maybe six or seven when I was being taken down the quay by my mother. It was a real outing for me because the boats were a big thing, and as a six or seven year old these big boats were absolutely massive, you know? I didn't appreciate the history behind them at that stage, but I very fondly remember the air-raid shelter and the boats. I also remember Lisahally and the U-boats in there. All of these still stick in my mind.

Ration books

"I even remember the ration books. Now that's really starting to make me sound old," he laughs: "But I actually remember my mum having ration books. Post war we were still short of food. I remember my mum used to go to Bridgend on Sunday and come back with two pounds of butter stuffed down her...well, wherever it was stuffed down...her clothes. It was smuggling, and that was all part of the war conditions."

Part of the reason for the ongoing stringent measures on 'home soil' was the fact that the soldiers were getting the best that could be afforded, so everyone at home was forced to live on their rations supplemented with whatever else they could grow or get their hands on - by fair means or foul. So close to the border acts of petty smuggling were a commonplace thing.

"They were sending stuff out to the soldiers, and quite rightly so. We were very resilient and we managed," he said.

While he was not involved in turning the garden over to produce vegetables for the pot and trading with the neighbours, others did.

"I knew it happened. I was not that way inclined, but I know there was an allotment down in St Columb's Park where there used to be prefabs down there, where I used to do a lot of playing with my school friends. The allotments used to be a big thing and they are coming back into fashion now, but the big thing back then was to have your own allotment and grow your own spuds or whatever.

Fond Memory

"It was the only way of supplementing what you ate because things were tight. The other fond memory I used to have was the Herring Man, as they used to call him. He used to come up our street once a week with a hand cart, which he pushed, and there was boxes of fresh herrings and them soaked in salt. I really am starting to sound very old! He used to shout 'Fresh herring, fresh herring' and everybody went out and bought."

Jack isn't precise about where the herring came from, but they were a popular option for the townsfolk who must have been thoroughly sick of powdered eggs and other such wartime culinary delights.

Enterprising neighbours did some radical things in their gardens - the type of things you definitely would not get away with today!

"All these things stick in my mind. The man next door had pigs and once a month or whatever he took them to the slaughter house and you were guaranteed a pork chop that night," he says, pausing for a moment before adding: "Or particularly the liver. You always got the liver back from the abattoirs, and you were eating liver maybe for a week after."

Pork chop

No doubt the Health and Safety Executive and a raft of other departments would have a thing or two to say if something like that were to happen today, and far from eagerly waiting for a pork chop for dinner, the neighbours of a pig-rearer would probably give you lashings of hot tongue and plenty of cold shoulder.

"The Health and Safety Executive would go mad - and the Environmental Health people. I remember next door there was a shed full of pigs. I slept in the back room in our house and all you heard in the middle of the night was the grunts of pigs, and then in the morning the man came round - the Brock Man, as you called him - and the brock was all the leavings.

"Nowadays when you have finished your dinner you scrape the plate into the bin, but then you used to scrape it into a bucket - bits of bread, bits of fat, bits of everything, and the smellier it got the better it was for the pigs. So he came every other day and collected the brock, a bucket full of brock, and he took it then and threw it in next door to the pigs, and the pigs got the brock and you got their liver eventually. A never-ending cycle. But you know, great days. Marvellous days. Very fond memories," he says with a smile.

"There was no waste, and the crack? I thoroughly enjoyed my childhood," Mr Glenn says with a contented air.

Marbles

"I firmly believe that kids don't know how to be kids any more. They have missed that...from the age of nine and 10 and upwards they have lost that lovely thing about being a child. Children don't play outside like they used to; hopscotch, rounds, the big thing was to have a hoop, and playing marbles. This is really reminiscing now, but the more you talk the more it comes back to me. So I have fond memories of the post-war years and of growing up and of setting out on my career path."

Significance

I ask Jack what memories he has, if any, of discussion in the house about the war and about the young men who left and went off to fight, what the different ships that visited the city were capable of during engagement, the significance of the port and such like.

HMS Sea Eagle

"Oh very much so, aye. I was always aware that the port, particularly in latter years when HMS Sea Eagle became active as an anti-submarine school, I knew that it was an anti-submarine school. So I was quite aware of it all," he said, pointing out that the importance of what was happening around them as children, was flagged up to them by the adults around them.

"There was a lot of respect afforded to them, and it is something which I feel, sadly, is gone now, you know? We...you know it's like anything else, if a Minister walked up the street you were frozen stiff with fear.

"You daren't speak to him and you hoped that he did not speak to you because you would have had to respond to him. But, you know, we looked up to those people. You went to the doctor he was god almighty, the GP," he says laughing.

Progress

"Now people go in and they call them by their first name, you know? They call it progress, I don't know...maybe it is," he said, pausing to draw breath: "I have fond memories of growing up. I still enjoy life big time. I would rather not be stricken with this, Parkinson's...but, as I said before, it is only Parkinson's Disease.