1939 - 1945
IVY MITCHELL nee PULLMAN RECALLED 17th Jan 2009
"I was born at Templecombe but was working in Sherborne at the start of the war. If I had stayed working at the boys and girls school I probably would not have been called up but I went to work at Milborne Port Glove Factory and that was when I was called up. I was sent to work in Reading for four years. First I had to fill shells, not the very big ones, and then later on I was trained to test them - that was dangerous. You had flames coming out of the machine around your legs. I was in lodgings and had a day off a fortnight. I couldn’t afford to go home more than once a month. My Uncle who was a Police Inspector at Bognor Regis used to pay for me to go to stay with him once a month.
I used to travel from Templecombe by train and changed at Basingstoke. I was in lodgings. I had three days off one Christmas and was going to travel back with my friend. We knew the train would be packed so we gathered a bunch of prickly holly. We soon cleared a space.
I was quite popular because I didn’t take sugar so my sugar ration was shared with the others. There was hardly any cake. Sometimes we managed to get some Huntley and Palmers cake - but that was under the carpet! It was lovely.
If we had relations working in food factories they used to share the extras their employers gave them. We swapped with something we could send them. Father used to shoot rabbits and we sent them up to Bristol relations. They used to send back cheese from the factory they worked in.
My friend’s brother was in the army. He sent a wooden box of fruit to me from France. We couldn’t get any. When it arrived the fruit had been stolen and all I got was the empty box!"
Reading
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Ivy Mitchell
Ivy Mitchell nee Pullman born at Templecombe (90 in November 2008) and sent to work in Reading filling shells.
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1939 - 1945
"There was hardly any food at the hospital. We used to get breakfast at 7am. It was a single piece of bread and margarine with lard on it. A cooked dinner was served at 12. It was swimming in water. That was supposed to be gravy. Tea was at 3.30pm and was a sandwich and a small bit of cake. Nothing else was served after that. When I was allowed home I did nothing but eat. I put on nearly a stone in a month!"
Dorset
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Heather Helliar
Heather Helliar moved to Yetminster while still at primary school, shortly after war broke out. Her grandparents still lived at Thornford and she recalls.
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1939 - 1945
"I went to Westminster Bridge Road Primary School. I was evacuated with my younger brother Peter who was four. I was almost six as my birthday was the 7th October. We thought it was an adventure. It was like going on holiday. Our headteacher Mrs Campbell, Mr Foster and Miss Dobson came with us. I remember we were given barley sugar sticks to suck on the journey. We all enjoyed those. We stopped at Templecombe Station [ some eight miles outside the town, although Sherborne had its own station] and had to get off the train. I don't know why it didn't steam into Sherborne. I remember it was dark. We had to get on to coaches and were transported to the Digby Hall in Digby Road. It was very late by then and we spent the night at Cmdr. Nash's house in Sandford Road [ now called Dymor]. In the morning Peter and I were collected by Win and Jim Gould and went to the home at 2 Coombe Terrace. Win was organist at St Paul's Church Coombe, a red brick building now an engineers, on the other side of the road. She also played the organ at Sandford Orcas and Poyntington and walked to those villages as they didn't have any transport of their own. I didn't enjoy having to go to church three times on Sundays. I sang in the choir. I did enjoy collecting the stamps for good attendance at the Sunday School. They were very colourful and we stuck them in our albums.
The Goulds were such nice people. We had a good home. Jim was a carpenter - the best in the street. Jim had a large garden that stretched right up from Coombe to Marston Road where he had his workshop. They had a large chicken called Henrietta who laid well and they grew most of their own food. The meal I didn't like was fried egg and mashed potato!
At home father worked on the railway, an essential job so he wasn't allowed to join the RAF. Mum and my younger brother Bill were evacuated to Exeter but they were bombed there and evacuated to Wells! Mum and Dad sent me a pair of heavy boots once. I didn't like them at all and called them 'clodhoppers' and tried to kick them and wear them out.
We were able to take part in potato picking and paid six pence an hour. We had to walk to Crackmoor on the outskirts of Milborne Port to pick up conkers. They were packed into wooden barrells and once full sold off to the Council Offices at Ludbourne Road, Sherborne and were used as pig food. We also picked rose hips which were rich in Vitamin C. When we had filled a two pound kilner jar full we could take those to the Council Offices and wer paid two pence. They were made into rose hip syrup. Mum used to send us a three pence postal order each week from London. We used to go to Woolworths. They still had sweets. We used to spend it on MIlky Ways and Golly Bars - these were toffee strips and you got four for a penny. We always managed to get treats. Sweets were not rationed then and we also had a tuck shop at school. We could also get ice cream.
Jim made a shelter under the stairs of plywood with benches round it. When the air raid sirens went off we had to hammer on the wall to Mrs Penny next door because she was deaf and couldn't hear the siren.
When it was harvest time we used to go into the fields to catch rabbits. All of the children were given a stick and we had enough to stand right around the edges of the field. As the harvest was cut the rabbits would go into the centre of the field and when the machines got closer they would run out and we would kill them. We weren't allowed to take home all the ones we caught. We had to put them all into a pool and the farmer would share them out at the end of the day.
We would also go out sticking - collecting sticks for the fire.
We used to play a lot of games. We had a darts board and we also used to do a lot of drawing. Paper was not in short supply. Jim was good artistically, being a cabinet maker. I remember painting a large picture of a parrot and it won a local competition.
The countryside seemed strange to us. We were frightened of cows at first but soon got used to them. We thought the hills around us were mountains!
I remember the only bombing raid that hit Sherborne in 1940. I was walking home from school. I remember at least one evacuee was killed in it. I remember the strong smell of gas in the air afterwards and Uncle Jim going out with his first aid kit on patrol. One night I heard a German plane low overhead. We knew it was going to crash it was so low but we boys were not allowed to get up and watch it. The men saw it in flames. It crashed in Poyntington village a few milesd away and the crew were buried in the churchyard for some time. After the war their bodies were returned to Munich.
We used to search for bits of plane and shrapnel to keep.!
We kept in touch with the Goulds for the rest of their lives."
Sherborne, Dorset
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James Whiting
James now lives at Seaton, Devon after falling in love with the countryside after being evacuated to Sherborne on the 2nd September 1939 from London.
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1942 - 1942
"Christmas Day 1942 we had Lieutenant Knott and Sandy Powell , a Lance Corporal from the A.A. Battery to dinner. Somewhere father had obtained a small chicken and Mother made a pudding from dired elderberries, carrots and apples and about a tea cupful of dried fruit. The cake was much the same but the marzipad was cooked semolina and flour with almond essence she had saved from before the war and the icing was a little of our sugar ration and dried milk powder. We were very proud of that cake! There weren't any crackers, dates, nuts, oranges, tinned fruit - and there were no Christmas trees!
The rations for one person per week were 4oz of bacon - usually very, very fat, 2 ounces of butter, 2 ounces of preserves (jam and marmalade), 1 ounce of cheese, a shillings worth of meat (5p) which amounted to about 10 ounces of fresh meat. You were supposed to get one fresh egg a week but it was often five or six weeks before they came in and you had to queue at the shop by 8am if you hoped to get 2 - no matter how many ration books you had. COupons also had to be used for that rare tin of Spam. It worked out roughly at one tin of something each month. Tea was also rationed at 2 ounces a week and sugar was 8 ounces but soon went dow to 4 ounces. At one time even bread and potatoes were rationed.
There were long queues at butchers hoping to get 2 sausages or a slice of liver as they weren't rationed. Many children were years old before they ever saw a banana, orange, lemon or grapefruit. There was a small ration of soal and soap powder. Every scrap of soap had to be used. Small pieces were kept until there were enough pieces to melt down with a little water to make it soft. Clothes were rationed too and shoes had wooden soles because of a shortage of leather.
Knickers and petticoatds were made out of worn out nighties and frocks were turned into blouses or skirts and mens things cut down and remade into childrens clothes. Worn out knitted things were unpicked and multicoloured striped jumpers became fashionable. Sheets were turned sides to the middle and then made into pillowcases. There were no nylon stockings only cotton lisle ones. We dyed our legs with permanganate of potash and then drew a line up the back with a brown crayon for a seam. If you got caught in a real downpour the brown went blotchy!
Father once brought home half of a silk parachute. We didn't ask where he got it from. We turned it into nighties and undies.
At the end of July 1942 I was 'called up' and sent to the Warwickshire Agricultural Committee Hostel (War Ag) to work as an assistant cook. It was hard work. You were lucky if you had a day off a week and usually worked over 60 hours a week. It was better than working in a noisy munitions factory."
Solihull
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Peggy Nash
nee Williams. Born 14th April 1925
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1941 - 1947
"I was born at Sutton Bingham, Somerset. Our cottage was pulled down when they built the reservoir in the 1950s. I left school in 1941 when I was 14 years old and went to work at Netherton Farm, Closworth three miles away. I worked there three years before I was old enough to join the Land Army as a dairymaid. I started looking after the ducks, chicken, geese and turkeys. I fed the pigs and the calves and had to hand milk the cows until they had a milking machine. There was no electricity. We had paraffin lanterns for lighting the house and the cow stalls and had to carry them with us. Then we had a milking machine powered by a Lister ending. I had a yoke to carry two large buckets of milk to the dairy at a time. It was put into a large bowl and left to strain after it passed through the cooler. We grew kale, turnips, cow cabbages, sugarbeet, mangels, potatoes and kale. It was hard work hoeing all of the crops between milking times. We still had horses to do the mowing and reaping. I met my husband Leslie in 1947. Everything was rationed. We had to have coupons to get the furniture. All we could get was a sideboard, a table and four chairs, one armchair, a bed and a dressing-table!
Edna and her husband Leslie now live at Ryme Intrinseca, about two miles from where she worked during the war. Leslie was delighted to be presented with a long service medal for his lifetime's work on the farm at the Dorset County Show."
Sutton Bingham, Somerset
1939 - 1945
"At 100 Dorothy recalled
"I was the youngest of four. My father, Charles, was shepherd on the farm and when he died my oldest brother Harry took over. I remember him coming home from the First World War. I was eight when he was called up. By the time the Second World War started, Mother, Elizabeth, had a heart condition so I was exempted from war work because I had to look after her. We were lucky in the country and being on the farm we had most things that we needed. I did gloving at home. Mine were leather samples of the highest quality that were sent out to store buyers. Ours was such a small village and off of the main road so the war didn't affect us a lot. We had our garden and I made jam.""
Closworth near Yeovil
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Dorothy Loveless
Lived all her life at Closworth near Yeovil, Somerset in the cottage where she was born.
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1939 - 1945
"I was at school when war broke out but I left before I had finished my education. My first job was supposed to be in a laboratory but it turned out to be making aircraft plywood. I didn't stay long! My second job was supposed to be hush-hush but turned out to be making perspex for aircraft. I didn't like it and only stayed nine days!. Then I went to work for the Canada Life Insurance Company where I did stay a little while but I wanted to work outside so I joined the Land Army. I was sent to a big house in Buckinghamshire as Under Gardener. The old gardener had retired but his two sons who took on the garden were called up and he had to come out of retirement. We dug up the tennis courts and grew potatoes and on the other courts we kept chickens. It was there I learnt to milk because they had two cows. The chauffeur/groom took on the hedging.
We had plenty of vegetables and the cook was still there so we lived ok. I was 18 then. Clothing was rationed but that didn't worry me much as I wasn't very fashion conscious. When the groom was on holiday I had to learn to milk the cows and found I liked it. It was unusual for girls to like milking the cows so I was sent to the other end of Bucks where there was a much larger herd of 50 cows. I was there for several years as cow man. They had one of the early dairies - a milking parlour. I wasn't very mechanical really but they found I was very good at keeping the parlour running. Then I was sent to another herd where they had Shorthorns. Shortly afterwards they changed to real Jersey cows that had come from the Channel Islands. I liked those a lot. I used to make butter, cream and cheese for the house in small amounts but not for sale. I was in the Land Army for over ten years but I still haven't got my badge. I finally left to get married. We lived quite well during the war. Make do and Mend was what we were used to. Compared to the 1920s and 1930s life was actually better. During the recession there was real hardship. We had grown up used to having to use everything and waste nothing. Nothing was left over."
Sheila continued to like her animals and kept and milked her goats until recent years."
Cheshire
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Ted and Sheila Babbidge
nee Nash. Sheila's story. She is now 85 and living in Cheshire.
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1939 - 1945
"Our family had started the village stores as long ago as 1800. Mother was Olive. We kept pigs and poultry. Long before war broke out we had to fill in an agricultural return. Each holding had a number and we had to declare how many animals kept every six months. Then we got coupons for animal feed. Mr Best at Bretts at Sherborne then sent out our allocation of poultry and pig meal. Strettons of Sherborne had a mobile thresher. Arthur Cooper drove it and was accompanied by Wacker Male when they came to the village every autumn and thrashed any crops for us. We then had to declare how many sacks of corn came out of the corn ricks so that surplus was not put on the black market.
I remember when the army was stationed in Thornford for two or three years they had a cookhouse behind the old village hall with a large range in it. However they couldn't properly cook some of the rations sent to them. They had large joints of meat and there was a lot of waste. I used to help father take the large wheelbarrow up there every night to collect the swill. We put it in the big furnace in the outhouse that would hold 20 - 25 gallons and boiled it for the pigs. It smelt awful but the pigs loved it. The furnace used to be used to scald the pig carcasses after they were killed.
Mother had to fill in a return every month to declare how many people were registered with her shop during rationing. Then permits were sent out and suppliers allocated the right amount of bacon, cheese and tea. Mr Rendall in Sherborne had his tea store by the Mermaid Hotel and he used to deliver our tea in his Trojan Brooke Bond Tea Van every week or fortnight. The Trojans didn't have a self starter and they had a chain drive. Mr Rendall used to have enough time to roll and light up a cigarette while he was getting the van started. He had to pull a lever in the cab up to get it started.
Mother used to make some jam but was limited by the amount of sugar she could get as it was rationed- so was the butter, marg and lard and eggs. They used to come from King Stag. I think a few of them went on the black market!"
Thornford, Dorset
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Philip Ellwood
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1939 - 1945
Now both residents of Leigh Old Vicarage Care Home our interview ended as lunch was about to be served.
They asked what was on the menu and laughed when they were told it was gammon!
""We both came from farming families. Bet lived at Bailey Ridge, near Leigh, Dorset and I lived at Glanvilles Wootton"
Bet added " he used to cycle over to see me."
Reg continued " both farms were dairy, pigs and poultry. I had war time exemption to stay and help my father on the farm and my sister but my brother had to go in the army. We used to keep about five breeding sows [pigs]. Numbers were different then than now. Everyone had a few. Later on Bet's father put up the first pig sty, Danish type on top of Bailey Ridge. It was modelled after the Danish type. We kept Large whites, Saddlebacks and later Landrace Crosses. Black and whites were the better ones in those days. They were still natural then and they grazed the grass better. At 5 to 6 weeks they were called sucklers and we used to keep them on until they were ready. Breeds of pigs have changed. In the end we got round to keeping Landrace. Most were sold private.
Bet explained what happened to theirs " my father supplied Greehams the Butchers in Sherborne. They unsed to ring up when they wanted X numbers - usually up to five.
Reg said their used to be sold privately and to market sometimes.
"Everything was rationed - you used to have to sell the pig before you got the grub to feed them on!"
Bet agreed "you had to apply to the Ministry for the food. 5cwt. comes to mind but that might have been for the cows. You got so much a month for the piglet. We kept chicken too at home. - 100 pullets before we got married.
Reg said "everyone kept a few hens. We were alright for eggs. We weren't really short of anything in the war because we were both on farms and had everything we needed."
"when you killed a pig you salted it down - there were no freezers or anything like that. You had a lead brine bath - a large tray six feet long by four feet wide and about six inches deep for salting and you filled it with brine - mostly salt and some vinegar. We didn't have enough to drown it so you used to have to turn it and tip the brine over the meat."
Bet added "Mother made sausages and faggots and used all of the pigs head."
Reg laughed " the only thing wasted was the squeak!"
"It stayed a long time in the brine, I can't remember how long. You had to keep turning it to keep it covered."
Bet recalled "when you wanted to cook it you had to soak it overnight to get all of the salt out otherwise it would have been too salty to eat."
Reg recalled "My father used to do pigs and then send the meat up to London in baskets by train. The porters used to take it.""
Holnest, Dorset
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Betty and Reg Coffin
Reg explained.
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1939 - 1943
""I was not yet 13 when war was declared in September 1939. I remember hearing it on the radio. My chief memory is of how pleased my mother, then aged 39, was to be able to take a full time job running an elementary school at Rockford, in the parish of Ellingham, Hampshire, between Ringwood and Fordingbridge, on the edge of the New Forest. She had been trained as a teacher at Salisbury Training College but in those days and for many years to follow, right up to my own time, one had, as a woman, to make that difficult choice between marriage and a career. She had married aged 20, directly after leaving college. She had been able to do supply work as a teacher, but that was all; my father was near retirement, so it was doubly important for her to have a job. It meant that we moved out of Southbourne and I had to stay with a family in Bournemouth from Monday to Friday in term time. Although the school house we moved to had no electricity and limited bathroom facilities, I loved it and really enjoyed finding out more about the countryside, its trees and flowers etc.
Previously I had only known the countryside when on holiday or on days out - not the same as living there. We had a dog for the first time too! The house may have lacked facilities we now take for granted and sometimes, as on my first weekend back at school ,heavy rain meant it was impossible to go home as the green outside the school was flooded, as was the ford to the west of us, which had prevented some children from coming in to my mother's school. My father used the bus to go into Bournemouth where he worked at the Town Hall in the Education Department but I preferred to cycle the 15 or so miles, usually on Monday mornings (when I was let off gym) and Friday evenings, using what we had always called "the switchback road" through Matchams. The school house overlooked a wartime airfield ( now it is part of Blashford Lakes) and on more than one occasion I saw two aeroplanes (Lightnings I think they were called, they belonged to the Canadians or Americans) take off almost simultaneously and crash into each other so that the pilot was brought down in flames. They carried spare petrol, which added to the danger. On another occasion, when my mother was away, my father lent a torch to some men, dressed in uniform but without insignia, who asked the way to the anti-aircraft gun emplacement nearby. Father, always trusting, showed them the short way, but the next day the Military Police arrived and told him how spies had stolen a plane and flown it to somewhere near Salisbury!
My school, Bournemouth School for Girls, which was then in Gervis Road near the Lansdowne, had, until 1942, to share premises with the evacuated Girls' Grammar School from Southampton so one week we went to school in the mornings (8.30am until 1pm) the next in the afternoons (2pm - 5.30pm), with additional lessons, like latin, held in a nearby hall out of normal school hours. School clubs too had to make do with makeshift accommodation much of the time. If an air-raid warning came, or sometimes just for practice, we had to take shelter in the cloakrooms, half underground and adapted for the purpose with extra girders. The coast, beach and cliffs were forbidden territory during the war and I needed a pass to come into Bournemouth. Swimming lessons stopped when the army took over Stokewood Road Baths, game facilities were limited and tennis was played in King's Park. We always carried our gas marks ( and had to practice using them too).
There were talks of emergency rations, including chocolate, but we never got the opportunity of sampling them. When the evacuation of Dunkirk happened in June 1940, about 850 French soldiers were given temporary accommodation in the school for four days while we had an enforced holiday. A Guide friend and I not only collected what clothes etc we could for them ( they really wanted pants which we didn't have!) but tried out our French dictation on seemingly uncomprehending French ears. Afterwards real air raid alerts became more frequent. There were compensations as well known stars of ballet, drama and music came to Bournmemouth, as it was deemed safer than London, and our own school societies flourished despite difficulties. Our interests extended; we began to understand the Headmistress's support for the League of Nastions. We collected for charitable causes, collecting salvage, bought National Savings Stamps, learnt simple First Aid and Home Nursing. Guide Camps became Harvest Camps with camouflaged tents and the opportunity to wield a pitchfork, drive a tractor, clear river weeds and dig potatoes etc.
In Rockford my mother joined the Women's Institute and I joined in the parties and dances for various soldiers, including Canadians. We enjoyed their gifts and company.
As for rations, we accepted what came, walked the two miles to Ringwood to get "off the ration" sausages and offal, and though we grumbled when our dog stole the butter or meat, we somehow managed.
As for make-do-and-mend we were used to that anyway and Guide badges included patching and mending! I don't remember feeling we were shorter in clothing and food than usual, though when I burnt my new blazer sleeve carrying an accumulator for the radio, I was careful to hide it from my mother! My father's growing of vegetables, which he had always liked doing, really came into its own. My mother's brother was a tailor so, even when I went to university, I was given a properly tailored new two piece suit as well as two new dresses."
Dorset and Hampshire
1937 - 1945
"I worked at Harper House, a boarding house for Sherborne School, as a sewing maid with Mr Tindall as House Master. In the 1920s he asked me to join him as House Matron at West Downs Preparatory School, Winchester, the Preparatory School for Winchester College, where he had just been appointed Head Master.
Two of my friends went with him too. West Downs was a lovely school and I enjoyed my work there. I used to come home during the holidays or sometimes went on holiday with the Tindalls to the Isle of Wight or Newquay.
When the war came we were worried about the boys.
Some of my favourite Old Boys were Peter Scott who as a boy used to come and ask.
"May can I borrow your watch?" He was always drawing as a young boy but didn't have a watch. He used to draw wildlife in the grounds during his lunch hour. We also had Angus Ogilvy and his brother. Their parents gave me a clock for looking after them so well!
Southampton was bombed and we always had bombers flying overhead. Some of the parents were worried too so Mr Tindall started looking for a safe place to move the school to. We took over Glenapp Castle in Ayrshire in South West Scotland and soon the boys started arriving. All went well at first. Their parents managed to send supplies of most things they needed and there was always something for us too. Then things changed. We found we were on the flight path for Ireland and Mr Tindall started to get worried again.
I went home for the summer holidays. It was a long train journey. I used to have a break in London and go and stay with Aunt Louisa and Uncle Zeb at Finsbury Park. Uncle Zeb was an Austrian Pastry Cook but he was interred in the Alexandra Palace in the First World War in case he was a spy! Aunt used to be allowed to visit him on Sundays. After the war they changed their name back to her maiden name, from Reinthler to Hunt, in case the same thing happened again!
I was crossing Waterloo Bridge one afternoon when there was an air raid and had to go to the nearest shelter. Some time afterwards Uncle Zeb's house was bombed and most of their road. They were re-housed close by. On my way back to Scotland Mother, Louisa's older sister, used to send up a few supplies from the country -eggs, fruit and jam- and I used to drop them off.
When we got back to Scotland we had a shock. The army had taken over Glenapp castle and with less than 48 hours before the boys were due back we had to start searching for another home for the school.
Mr Tindall spent most of the next day with the army who tried to find somewhere for the boys. Then at the last minute we learnt Blair Castle, near Blair Atholl village, in Perthshire was being made available for us. Some of us went on to the castle while others waited to collect the boys as they arrived back and see they were sent on to Blair Atholl. There hadn't been time to tell them to go to Blair Atholl. It was a lovely place to stay. It had been an auxillary hospital in the First World War but was the family home of the Duke of Atholl. The Duke was the only person allowed to keep a private army and we often saw his Atholl Highlanders. While we were there the Duke died and we watched the Highlanders parade and pipe the coffin from the house to the church. We watched from the upper windows. The family made us very welcome and we had few shortages. The estate was large and the remaining keepers kept us well supplied with food.
The boys were very careful in the castle and I don't remember any breakages but they all came from well off homes so were used to such places.
In May 1945 I had a phonecall from Dorset to say Mother was seriously ill so I packed up and caught the first train home. She died soon after I got there and I stayed home to look after father and never returned to Scotland. At home we had rationing but we had a large garden and two allotments. My brother was a thatcher and got a special petrol allowance so he could carry on working. He often came home with something for the table. My Uncle was a keeper in Honeycombe Wood so he sometimes gave us things too. He kept pigs and built a smoke house near the house. He used oak shavings and smoked the joints and hams so we often had meat too. "
Dorset, Scotland, London
1939 - 1945
"I lived at the little hamlet of Lower Wraxall, Dorset, until I was 18 in 1945. We saw lots of action. I remember a huge air battle and aircraft coming down in flames. It was sad - they were someones sons weren't they?. We were milking cows at the time. We saw men coming out in parachutes. We had a lot of troops in the village and military police after Dunkirk. They went off on their motorbikes to look for the men. I worked with my father on his farm when I left school.
Then I went to Leigh in 1945 when I was 18, milking. That's why I have bad hands. We had to milk 60 cows by hand!
Troops used to live in an old cottage. They used to sing "I fell in love with Mary at the dairy" when we walked by.
We had a huge vegetable garden and got plenty of food that way. I was about 13 or 14 when the war started. We didn't really understand. We thought it was good fun really.
We didn't have evacuees but we did at the village school at Rampisham. There was a family evacuated from Weymouth. Mr Fraser had a plumbing business and he went backwards and forwards every day and there was Digby the fruit wholesalers and he did the same. I remember the troops gathering for D Day and they used to say "Careless talk costs Lives"
We had butter and loads of cheese. We had a cheesemaker and a cheese loft. When you went into the cheese room it was full off lots of truckles of cheese - mostly cheddar but sometimes Dorset Blue Vinny. I can't tell you the recipe. I never touched the stuff myself. No we weren't short really. We had pig meat and plenty of butter.
I could make butter today with a big churn. It was the good old days. You see we had all those troops in the village!"
Lower Wraxall, Dorset
1939 - 1945
"I spent a lot of the war on Salisbury Plain. I was a VAD (The Voluntary Aid Detachment was founded in 1909 with the help of the Red Cross and the Order of St. John and provided auxiliary nursing services mostly in hospitals in this country and occasionally abroad).
I worked in one of the huts. A specially made hospital had been set up there. Those coming back from the war sometimes came there but more often service men who had suffered accidents in this country. We had Despatch Riders who were injured when they came off their bikes or people who had crashed their planes or had other accidents here while serving. I worked on the wards but caught a bug that produced large abcesses under both arms and I had to be taken off the wards. I didn't have a cooking certificate so I was shifted to the canteen to cook for 100 staff. Two of us cooked 100 meals at a time. I remember a horrible thing happening to one girl. We were making scrambled egg in a double saucepan. It had boiled dry and when she tried to separate them it all blew up in her face and she was badly burned.
We had rationing. We were very short of everything. We were only allowed an ounce of butter - a very very little bit. We really didn't see any fruit because a lot of it had been imported.
My husband was serving in the navy. I remember when my son was born in a London Hospital, the day after a bombing raid. All of the windows had been blown out and they had replaced them with cellophane because they had been broken so many times. I remember seeing people going into the underground to shelter from the bombing raids.
I wanted to go on and do a dietetics course so I moved to Glasgow but then my husband came home. He had been at sea a long time. We moved to Plymouth after the worst of the boming there that had flattened the middle part. We managed to get a flat in a Doctor's house. It had been the house for the agent to Lord Morley before the war but then the Doctors took it on and they moved into part of the house and the rest became flats.
I remember my son's excitement when naval friends who had come back from the Bahamas smuggled in a few bananas and gave him one. He had never seen one before. Sometimes pilots managed to bring back a few luxuries."
Salisbury Plain
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Eleanor Clive-Powell
Interviewed and Leigh Old Vicarage Care Home
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1939 - 1945
"I don't remember being very short of much during the war except my sweet ration used to disappear very quickly. Mum used to send me to the shop for a halfpenny's worth of sweets. She used to send me with a penny and always asked for the change. Our little shopkeeper was an old lady and she used to make her own sweets. I'm not sure how she got the sugar! She used to make sticky toffee drops and some others. I do remember things getting worse after the war. During the war our local baker still made his lovely bread. You used to be able to smell it baking from our house and Mum used to send me round to get our loaf that wasn't rationed. After the war for a while bread was rationed. The Utility Loaf was horrible after our lovely bread. They used to say 70% less wheat in it. I'm not sure what was in it. It was a grey colour and tasted awful. Mum managed to get some flour and made us soda bread at home."
Street, Somerset
1943 - 1954
"My family was part of the Polish community at Haydon Park on the outskirts of Sherborne. I remember the galvanise roofs of the huts. They had a door at each end and were divided with one family at each end. The winters were very cold. We only had a small pot bellied stove for heat. Mum used to heat the water on top of it. I remember my Dad carrying me to the hospital hut when I was very ill with measles. When some of the families had been re-homed in the local community the hut was opened up and we had the whole hut. A new small range was fitted which was much warmer. I lived there until about 1954.
The camp was built in 1943 by the Americans as Field Hospital 228 and consisted mostly of nissen huts. Conditions were very basic when the camp was handed over to house refugees. NAFFI furniture on site was used to furnish the huts which did not have running water. There were communal washing areas and toilets. There was a central canteen and two meals a day were provided with breakfast and other small cooking needs carried out in the huts."
Sherborne, Dorset
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Liz
Sherborne Museum would like to hear from anyone else who lived at Haydon Park Camp and hope to hold a reunion at the Museum in 2011
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1939 - 1945
"I was born three miles from Wimborne, Dorset, in a little village and it remained my family home until we moved to Chetnole after the war. I was at school when war broke out. Then I began my nurse's training in Surrey. We were evacuated to Yorkshire because of the danger from bombing raids and rockets. Father was destined for the bank when he had left school but the outbreak of the First World War put paid to that. He was due to embark but slipped and fell and broke his arm so he never went to France. After the First War he went into poultry farming. He never wanted to work inside again. We were lucky living in the country when the Second World War broke out and had poultry and everything we needed. I don't remember being short of anything but we were used to shortages. Things had been much worse before the war. There were real shortages and hardships during the 1930s so we were used to making do so when war broke out those shortages were nothing new to us. We didn't keep rabbits but our cat was very good at catching them and when it brought them home we used to take them away and cook them for dinner. Father was too old by then to be called up but he did go into the RPU - the Radar Prototype Unit at Creech Moor. I don't really know what he did. I don't expect we were supposed to. Times were really hard but we had learnt to cope before the war. People didn't expect as much as people do today."
Wimborne, Dorset
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Sybil Howard
Pictured taking part in the Chetnole Church Parachuting Teddy Bears, the village she has lived in for over 60 years.
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1939 - 1945
"The family had been there over 200 years. It was a mixed farm so we had everything we wanted - pork, eggs, milk, butter, cheese and vegetables. No one had served in the forces as they had reserved occupations although my father was a member of the Home Guard. They used to meet in a hut in a sand pit but there was usually nothing for them to do. I stayed with my aunt in Winchester for two years. We had a lot of troop movements leading up to D Day. I remember the troops marching on the roads too. She had American soldiers billetted with her. We used to hear our bombers going out on raids. They went overhead both at the farm and at Winchester. Sometimes we saw them coming back with vapour trails behind some of them who just made it home.
At the farm I remember hearing the empty cartridge cases raining down on the galvanised roofs of the farm buildings and the noise it made. We weren't really short of anything. We never wasted anything in any case so it was nothing new to us."
Eastleigh, near Winchester
1939 - 1945
"I was 11 and we lived at Petties Farm, next to the White Hart. We kept about 12 cows in those days. During the war we had to plough up a lot of our land and grow a lot of crops for animal feed too. We rented about an acre and a half of allotment land in the village as well and grew feed crops and rotated it with potatoes. We weren't really short of anything during the war. We had rationing but we grew most of the things we needed as we had a large vegetable garden too. When rationing came in and meat was short mother started keeping a lot of rabbits so we ate a lot of rabbit meat and occasionally there was a pheasant or two. Then mother started keeping Aylesbury ducks as well so sometimes we had a duck to eat. We had poultry and eggs and then mother started making our own butter too. My sister Betty and I didn't like the home made butter very much so mother and father ate that and we had the butter ration!
At school we were taught to go and lie in a ditch if there was a bombing raid and the shrapnel would go over us. We used to get a lot of air raid warnings and were used to the siren going off and didn't take a lot of notice of that but one day [30th September 1940] after school I was on my own and that was the only time during the war that I was really frightened. My job was to go to the allotments and gather rabbit food - dandelions and leaves, anything they would eat. The siren sounded. It was a cloudy day and I never saw the planes but then the noise started and I saw the black smoke start to rise in the distance and realised it was for real. It was the only bombing raid of the war but I remember how frightened I was. I remember the evacuees coming too. We had lots of them from all over London. They used to walk miles to Yetminster School each day from the villages - there weren't any school buses in those days - and then they had to walk home again afterwards."
Yetminster, Dorset
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Colin King
of Yetminster remembers his wartime schooldays at home in Yetminster.
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1940 - 1945
Kathleen goes back to the evacuees reunion regularly and has kept in touch with many of her wartime friends.
"We started off going to Suffolk with an Aunt and Uncle from South East London. Three months later my Aunt fell down stairs. She tripped over the cat and we returned home and in 1940 were evacuated to Seavington St Michael in Somerset with my school. I was evacuated with my brother. We all arrived by train and gathered at the Horlicks factory at Chard and were simply tipped out there. I remember being given milk and iced buns which I thought was wonderful. Then we were bussed out to the villages. We didn't want to be separated and when my father was called up Mother came too. She worked in the local hostel where those evacuee children with problems who could not be billeted out with families used to have to live. I didn't find the country frightening because we used to spend our holidays in Suffolk.. I loved it. Mother had been a country girl from Suffolk who went into service and that was how she met my father, a Londoner.
In the early days of the war we had an Anderson shelter in the garden which we shared as they took 10. Our ARP warden gave a warning for gas. My friend's sister had just put her hair rollers in and couldn't get her gas mask on! Her father said "you aren't going to do that again for the rest of the war!"
In Somerset we went to the village school and after a year we moved to Donyatt. We evacuees were in the village hall. I then went to night school and learnt shorthand. I went to Dowlish Wake [a village close by] at 15 as a junior shorthand typist for the shipping department of Standard Telephones and Cables who were then making munitions. I was confirmed at St Mary's Church in Ilminster and had a very happy time there. I didn't want to go back home. I joined the choir, the Youth Club and went to dances and we had barn dances too. I walked from Donyatt to Ilminster regularly as they had a Picture Palace there. Rationing was not a problem although there weren't any sweets. Occasionally a shop in Ilminster got gelatine sweets and I used to rush to get my 2oz ration! We had plenty of eggs, cream, bread and jam and used to top up at breakfast for the day ahead. There were several smallholdings close by so we got chicken and eggs - plenty of eggs. I remember clothing coupons and we used to plan out how we were going to use them. I don't remember any particular shortages. I do remember all of us evacuees were provided with wellingtons.
Trains were blacked out. I remember travelling from Taunton to Ilminster - there were no lights on the station. We had to guess where we were as they took the station name boards down too. We came from Taunton to Chard and got off at Donyatt Halt. They had war time pillboxes there and close by was the airfield, Merryfield. I remember the Americans used to fly their wounded in to Merryfield and I used to see convoys of Red Cross collecting them. I liked the convoys - the soldiers used to throw out nylon stockings and sweets!"
Somerset
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Kath Pettigrew
Kath Pettigrew partners Val Cookson, who founded the Dollywood Dancers [named after her mother Dolly Wood], entertaining at the launch of the Make do and Mend Project Wartime Garden Party and were interviewed in February 2010 at a Memories Tea Party.
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1940 - 1940
Colin King of Yetminster, Dorset has already recorded his memories of the Sherborne bombing raid but then he also remembered.
"Father [Reginald King] was picking apples at home at Petties Farm next to the White Hart Inn when the Air Raid Siren Sounded. We had an orchard - plums, pears and apples. We used to sell some of the apples. He got down the ladder when the bombs began to fall and left the bushell basket full in the yard and rushed up to the house. After it was all over he found one of the two horses had eaten half a basket full! We had an acre and a half of allotments too and grew potatoes, corn and wheat in rotation. We heard the planes and saw our Spitfires and a Hurricane but could not see the German ones. We could see black smoke rising from Sherborne. At first we thought Thornford had been hit [the village in between Yetminster and Sherborne where his mother Freda had been born]. It looked far closer than Sherborne. We hardly ever went to Sherborne unless we needed to although it was only five miles away so I didn't see much of the damage. It took two or three years to repair the damage. I remember seeing Spitfires quite often as they were based at Warmwell. We used to see them nearly every Monday at about 3.30pm!
Although we had two horses and not a tractor we still needed a petrol ration to run the stationary engine to cut the chaff and mangel, swedes and turnips into pulp to mix with the chaff for animal feed. We had petrol coupons for the engine and I had to take the petrol can up to Mr Roberts at the garage to get our petrol."
Yetminster, Dorset
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Colin King
of Yetminster remembers his wartime schooldays at home in Yetminster.
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1939 - 1945
"I came from Norfolk. I was up at Oxford when war broke out. We were miles away from the war. Hitler was going to make it his headquarters so the German aircraft were not allowed to bomb it. I finished my finals on the Friday and on the Monday took over my Father's school for six weeks. There were 48 mixed infants there at St Albans. There were quite a lot of air raid warnings. The planes were heading for Hatfield and the aircraft factories. We had a wartime shelter and got used to teaching underground. It was very difficult. We had tilley lamps and no heating and took our own stools down with us. There was one corridor that ran into another, only one small loo and - no food! If parents could not collect their children because the All Clear had not sounded they had to stay with us, often until 6.30pm until it was safe to collect them. It was difficult to keep them amused because we didn't have any books or paper with us so we did spelling tests, times tables and sang songs - anything we knew by heart - I remember Cherry Ripe and Going to Strawberry Fair. As an education it really was a blank.
I was very lucky we already knew about Make do and Mend! There was an excellent cook at the Junior School. I was lucky. I avoided hardships that way. When I went to the High School in Nottingham we were very lucky - there were no bombs. The army occupied half of the school. We had to be very economical with paper and re-use every bit. This was while the army was being very lavish!
I do remember at Nottingham I had to go down to town for lunch and all I ever had for lunch was sausages or fish cakes that had been kept warm for hours! We had the odd bomb drop near us because of Hatfield. I remember we had to take evacuees at St Albans and try to get them fitted in - they were always shrieking to go home but they were in a safe place.
I remember rationing. We used to get two pints of milk on a Monday and the milkman used to leave another two pints on a Tuesday for the week. I was new to catering and it gradually got worse. Fresh veg was difficult and there was no fish. We only had meat for two meals a week. There was spam - it looked pink and it tasted pink! We had horse meat and whale meat, powdered milk and powdered egg. Bread and potatoes were rationed too after the war. I remember the Woolton Loaf - it had a lot of potato flour in it because wheat was in short supply.
There were no bananas - children didn't know what they were. If you knew a shopkeeper you got extras! - a little something wrapped up and slipped into your shopping bag!
I remember having to cycle six miles to work. I remember boyfriends used to regularly disappear - they got called up. You had just got to know them and then they were gone. Some didn't come back.
Clothes - well it was Make do and Mend. I remember curtains being made into a skirt. Stockings disappeared so we wore ankle socks a lot. I remember I made a jumper once - well it was rather a nice waistcoat really out of 12 cards of mending wool - that wasn't rationed!
Furniture was rationed too! We were rationed for sheets. It was very difficult setting up home. There was a two years wait for a vacuum cleamer. I remember spending a lot of money at a fairground trying to win some saucepans - I didn't though. They were probably stuck down. You just couldn't get new saucepans. A lot of old ones were gathered for the war effort and people got out their old cast iron ones again. They were too heavy for camping stoves.
There was Utility Furniture too - it lasted well and wasn't bad in design - it was vaguely Scandinavian.
Weather during the war wasn't bad - but we weren't allowed to go anywhere! After the war we had some really bad winters.
I remember at St Albans seeing the lights in the sky when London was bombed."
Oxford
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Vicky Cornford
retired to Yetminster, Dorset and was interviewed at a Memories Tea Party at CraftyTimes Tea Room in the village who hosted the event. Vicky enjoyed her afternoon " I haven't talked about those days for years. It is all coming back to me now!"
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1940 - 1940
"I remember the day of the Sherborne bombing raid.[30th September 1940] I was up in Five Acres, a big field up above the bend, where you had a good view. Sirens had gone and I was watching the German bombers - yes you could see them although it was a cloudy day. I saw one of our planes go up. It was spiralling round the Germans trying to turn them back - a tiny shiny shape moving about. The barrage balloons had gone up in Yeovil and I saw the planes suddenly change direction. They started to drop bombs along the railway line but the bombs landed on either side and missed the track. There were craters there for years afterwards. Our guns started opening fire. There were guns at Houndstone Camp and a big one in Barwick Park. Instead of hitting the German planes they hit that one of ours and I saw it come down.
Then we heard the planes continue on the way to Sherborne and heard the bombs hitting the town.
On another occasion a bomb was dropped at the entrance to the drive of Barwick House - which had been taken over for military operations.
I joined the Railway Home Guard at Stoford at 15. Quite often when I got home for tea Mother would say 'You will have to wait for yours tonight son - these come first' and there around the table would be an assortment of army and navy blokes who could not get home. Mother would always feed them. I went to work for a brewery delivery firm and we used to deliver up to Bristol. I got up there when they were being bombed! After that I worked for the Railway at Yeovil Junction. I used to be sent up to London and got there as the first rockets started to come over. That was frightening and I thought it was time for me to come back home. I don't remember any particular shortages. Mother always made sure we had enough of everything and of course in the country we were able to grow our own and keep chickens."
Stoford, Somerset
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Vic Whelton
was living at Stoford, Somerset on the border with Dorset when war broke out.
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1939 - 1945
"I was born at Ivy House Farm, Oborne, Dorset, a couple of miles east of Sherborne. I started school at Newland Infants School in the town but had left before the bombing raid. Newland School had a direct hit. I went on to Abbey School at the other end of the town and had to cycle there. On 30th September 1940, a cloudy day, I had cycled home and gone indoors. The sirens had gone but they had gone before and there had never been an air raid. Then we heard the planes and ran out and saw the bombs falling on the town. The planes were heading our way. We wondered if father was alright. He was on the other side of the road hand milking our cows. We went over to find him. Shrapnel was falling. We found him sheltering behind a pile of full cattle feed sacks. When it was all over we realised our friends Elsie and Ivy Cheeseman on the other side of the road from us - same name but no relation - had not returned from Sherborne. They had cycled in earlier that afternoon. Father got into his square Morris van and went off to see if he could find them. We could see smoke rising from the town. I am not sure if he did manage to find them or not. He did see a dead brewery shire horse and found a lot of damage.
At school we had this arrangement with a lady who lived opposite but worked in Frisby's shoe shop. If the siren went while my sister and I was at school we could go over to her house and hide in her shelter in the cupboard under the stairs.
Mother made butter - I never liked it and wouldn't eat it - and used to take it into the sweet shop in Cheap Street and exchange it for sweets and stuff she sold. There was a lot of blackmarket trading going on. I remember crossing over to the stable one night to see my horse and found a man wheeling a milk churn in. I thought it was a funny time to be shifting milk around. When we closed the door he took the lid off and it was full of joints of meat! Father had some. I'm not sure what he traded for it - butter, milk and eggs I expect.
I remember the blackout and barrage balloons. There was one at the highpoint on Sigwells where there was a Home Guard battery and lookout.
I had a school friend who lived at Middle Lodge in the middle of Sherborne Castle Park. It didn't have any modern services at all. We used to have to go and draw water from the pump outside and it had oil lamps. During the war American soldiers were at the army hospital at the other end of the park and were always driving by. I used to like staying there. They used to toss us candy bars! They were a different lot to our soldiers - less orderly, very friendly but a bit sloppy compared to ours. I remember one day I was walking home to Oborne and one of the large American ambulances was driving by, pulled up and asked me if I wanted a lift. I said yes and got in. I didn't think about it.You wouldn't do that today. I probably shouldn't have done it then but it was alright.
I remember going out rabbiting. I used to go out with my first boyfriend rabbiting. We used to go under Oborne railway bridge. We used to eat a lot of rabbit during the war. We had rabbit stew and rabbit roast and if there were any leftovers mother used to cook the bones up with some lentils - it was always lentils to make a soup."
Oborne, Dorset
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Audrey Ashman
nee Cheeseman was born at Oborne, near Sherborne, Dorset
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1939 - 1945
"I was born in Wiltshire but Mother died and I went to live with an Aunt in London. My Dad lived on the Woburn Estate and I remember we went down to stay there sometimes to get a good night's sleep from the Blitz in London. He used to give us real eggs - we were used to powdered egg in London during the war. I do remember a thing called Wootton Pie but I can't remember how it was made during the war.
In London I started out having been put into a factory 'Standard Telephones and Cables' making parts for aircraft etc. One day on the radio Lord Haw Haw said they would bomb the factory - and they did. One bomb fell between our building and the wood shed and the whole of our side wall was taken out - the clock stopped at 5 to 8am and about 50 people were killed who were going upstairs to the Offices above. It was my chance to leave there as they had to find room for the day and the night shift and there was no blackout any longer on the bombed wall. I joined the NAFFI. We had our problems but on the whole it was alright. We had seven beds in a Nissan Hut and crickets in the wall! They used to wake us up at night. We had a double oven fire in the kitchen which had to be lit early each morning before anyone could have a cup of tea. The water had to be boiled there.
My other memories are of my cousin who sent us tea from India. My brother was in the navy but fortunately he came home safely. My Dad was in the Home Guard. I have so many memories - so many of my friends were killed. I used to pick up bits of shrapnel on the way home in the morning after spending all night in a public air raid shelter under the local Almshouse. I remember so many children being evacuated to the country for safety. We had two and a half pints of milk a week for the two of us at home but when I went into the NAFFI my Aunt only got half a pint every other day. I remember my Uncle was awarded the MBE but he would never say why. He had won the Military Medal in the 1914 war as well.
I remember gas masks, barrage balloons and blackout curtains. We had a table shelter. It took up nearly all of our big kitchen space! I remember our Ration Books - we had coupons or points for everything you wanted to buy.
My cousin was killed in the Berlin airlift. His brother was killed on an oil tanker. I remember being confirmed in St. Paul's Cathedral after it was bombed and having tea in a Lyon's Corner House afterwards. VE Day was also my birthday. I was in Fleet Street - you couldn't move it was so packed with people!"
London and South East
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Eileen Harris
now resides at St Johns Almshouse, Sherborne but lived at Bradford Abbas for 38 years.
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1939 - 1945
"I came from Surrey but now live in St Johns Almshouse, Sherborne, Dorset. At 14 I went into service but at 20 I was called up for war work and worked in a factory - making things for guns. I stayed at home as I lived close by and was picked up for work. We lived in the country in a village called Frimley Green - all fields, farms and allotments. I lived with grandparents on both sides of us! We were quite well off for food - one grandmother used to sit and talk about rationing in the First War and go back even further to how very short of food they were in the Boer War. Things were much worse then. My father was in the Queens Regiment and was away at war from 1914. He served until his time was up. During the school holidays I used to walk to see relations - the only way to get there. My uncles all had allotments and one grandfather was a gardener. He used to keep his kitchen garden for growing fruit and had allotments. I remember doing a lot of knitting and sewing in the war."
Surrey
1939 - 1945
"I was born at Yenston near Templecombe, Somerset and now live at St Johns Almshouse, Sherborne, Dorset. I am 90 years old. During the war I was a mobile nurse. I worked in lots of different places - London way, Portsmouth, Sherborne and Yeovil. Our patients, wounded troops, came by train and transport. We had high standards in nursing then. Everything had to be done just right. I met my husband who was born in Sherborne when I was working there. I remember the evacuees arriving. My father had a mixed farm - not sure what sort of cows they were but they were brown and white."
Templecombe, Somerset
1939 - 1945
"Living on the farm we were lucky. We used to kill two or three pigs most summers for us and the men. We always had plenty of milk and rabbits - we ate rabbits three or four times a week. I remember dough boys and stir up puddings boiled in the cloth. We used to grow a ton of spuds in the garden. They used to last us nearly all year round."
Sherborne, Dorset
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Jack Dimond
Sherborne Farmer and author lives beneath the Old Castle ruins and has sold over 15,000 copies of his memoirs.
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1939 - 1945
"At home father had three allotments at South View - two on one side of the footpath and one on the other - so we grew everything we needed. He was renowned for his onions and he used to sell some. At home we had nails all around Back House as we called it and rabbits were hung there, paunched and all ready for cooking. Father used to work for Wyatt Paul on the farm, although he couldn't drive a tractor. Wyatt Paul owned most of the village in those days. Father was a rick thatcher for them and that was how I became interested but I became an apprentice and went on to become a Master Thatcher. Father used to go rabbiting and ferreting so we used to have rabbit three or four times a week. There were five of us children to feed. We used to have rabbit stew and roast rabbit. If we had anything else - like pork or beef - that was a real surprise. We weren't short of food in the war. I can't remember being really short of anything."
Sherborne, Dorset
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Ron Gosney
became one of the 'Grand Old Men' of the village in 2009 re-enacting the original gathering in the 1930s when the oldest residents famed for their longevity became film stars! In 2009 those Bradfordians of advancing ages were honoured at a social gathering in the village. Ron became Master Thatcher of the village.
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1939 - 1945
"I was in Central London during the war. I was nursing - in training when war broke out. I was on night duty when Great Ormond Street Hospital was bombed in the blitz. Most of the teaching hospitals had been evacuated to base hospitals in the country. None closed but bed numbers fluctuated. It was a very highly organised system evacuating patients every morning. As soon as they could be moved they were moved out to base hospitals. Green Line coaches were commandeered as convoys of ambulances. Every morning the convoys left. It was a very organised system every morning and then on the return journey patients were brought back who had recovered from operations. During the blitz it was horrendous. I remember a particular night when I was on night duty on the fifth floor. The sirens went and we wheeled the beds and cots - and remember we had very sick babies and children - out into the corridor as it was considered the safest place away from glass and arc lights. That night I shall never forget as long as I live. Crump, crump, crump we heard followed by bounces on the roof - a very large bomb had gone down the main lift shaft. All the main services were knocked out. We still wore a Victorian style uniform - long capes, gas masks on shoulder and each of us had to carry a baby wrapped in a blanket and their huge baby gas masks packed in large cardboard boxes. We had to carry everything down into the basemet lit only by a small pen torch. It was regarded as the safest place. It was a very big hospital and a tall building so an easy target. As soon as we got to the basement the water started to rise until it was a huge flood several feet deep. Everything from the kitchen was floating. I remember seeing babies bottles, a pound of sausages, childrens green ration books - they all floated by. Firemen from the ak-ak factory opposite came to rescue us. I don't know how they did it. They piggybacked us up from the basement still carrying our baby patients and all our equipment and put us down on the ground floor. We all gathered in the atrium of the hospital and assembled. Then we went out in single file across the forecourt and across the road to the Hospital for Nervous Diseases. It was like treading on an ice rink. Every bit of glass from our hospital had been blown out. It was treacherous to walk on, especially carrying so much and our precious babies. We also had our white starched bonnets - we were a sitting target. It was pitch dark and a black out. We never came out until 6am/7am and then went into the Out Patients Department and sat on the floor. We were all 18 years of age. We were given a boiled egg each for breakfast.
Wartime London was difficult, especially in September 1940 at the height of the blitz. German bombers came up the Thames in the late afternoon to bomb the East End. I remember it always smelt like burnt toast afterwards. I shall never forget it. Mother was home on the outskirts of Reading and Father was at The Front for the second time in his life as he had served in the First War.
Our patients had special dried milk and special juices because of course they did not need a meat ration so their needs were substituted. There were no oranges so rose-hip sysrup was substituted. Rationing didn't stop when the war stopped - not until 1953, the last being meat - not until after the Coronation. Food was shorter after the war, especially bread and potatoes that had not been rationed before. We had to feed the people of Europe. I started nursing six months before war broke out and I was a Senior Sister by the end of the war.
Our Nurses Uniform altered during the war to save material. Our Nurses dresses had been 12 inches above the ground and this went up to 14 inches. The dresses had taken six and a half yards of material to make! They took the straps off of our aprons and our bibs were fixed with safety pins. Caps changed in style too. Gradually our long sleeves became short sleeves. Our long full capes became short capes. The problem was getting everything starched. It was difficult to get enough starch. We had at least one clean apron a day. We had to buy our own uniform. We went to the hospital tailors to get measured. Mother said it was like starting at boarding school all over again! In our second year we were given enough material to make our uniform. We were paid £15 a year, in the second year £20 and in the third £30. It was quite expensive to go into nursing before the Health Service. If you didn't like it and left you had to pay them back. You had to supply your own safety pins too. You had to pay for breakages; six pence (6d) for a broken thermometer. It was very disciplined. We were not allowed out after 10pm. Only in recent years have women become emancipated. We were all under 21 [ 21 then being the coming of age] so Matron was responsible for all of us. It was a great responsibility."
Central London
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Mary Hatt
Mary Hatt was interviewed at the St Johns Almshouse Memories Tea Party where she has recently retired to after a lifetime career in nursing.
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1939 - 1945
"I remember the Sherborne Bombing Raid. I was going out to the hairdressers, Ruth Foster's Mum. I was passing Mrs Grant's house and she called "You had better come in. The barrage balloons have just gone up Yeovil way." I didn't see the damage done in Sherborne. We heard the planes and the bombs but we couldn't get about in wartime so I didn't get to Sherborne ( five miles away) very often. I always remember the start of the war. My Mum was killed on the 24th of August 1939 at the Cross Roads. She had been worried about the coming war and said she didn't want to see her boys go to war. I remember her arm was broken and she had other injuries and later that night my sister Linda came and said Mummy's dead. Mrs Gervis was a nurse, the schoolmaster's wife, and she had come to help. We used to wear black for six months. I remember Gran made us girls black and white check dresses - for four of us.
At Yetminster we had an air raid siren at Brister End up by the quarry. Quite a few men from the village used to man it - Dr Stevens was one of them and a man from Ryme came to help.
I remember looking forward to going to Sherborne by charabanc every year to Phillips and Andover in Sherborne but it was bombed. We used to pay into a clothing club at the Vicarage - a shilling a week [5p] and at the end of the year we used to enjoy the ride in the charabanc with the roof down if the weather was fine and spending the club money at the store.
I remember Harry Saunders was Sexton at Yetminster. He lived in the thatched Sexton's cottage next to the church - it isn't thatched now. His job was to light the lamps in the church and each night he used to go into the church to ring the Curfew Bell. I worked for Dr. Stevens - in service. Mrs Stevens had a canteen in the garage for soldiers. There were lots billeted in Yetminster and it was my job to fry the soldiers breakfasts. Miss Buckler helped and Miss Trubridge - but she was killed at Hendford, Yeovil when her mackintosh got caught in the wheel of her bicycle. Nearly every house in the village had someone. Aunt Kath had an evacuee - a girl and then later another girl. She had such pretty hair she was such a pretty little thing. When the evacuees came they didn't have anything. A lot of them were so poor. We tried to get them things. At our school - we had a boys school at Boyles and a girls school - it was difficult to fit them all in.
I remember Ration Books. Mrs Stevens kept all of my food coupons as I was in service there and provided the food. I just had my sweets coupons and clothing coupons. There was a lot of jiggery pokkery going on. They were in with some of these high up people and they didn't go short of anything! We used to see it going on.
Ourselves we made do. We knew we couldn't have it and we didn't have the money to buy things either. If you wanted a bigger garment it was more coupons you had to use. I didn't need much clothes. I was in service so I had my uniform. I had my dress and apron and cap - stiff white cuffs and starched cap. Mrs Gould did all of the house washing and Mrs Dean was the Parlour Maid - she was very smart. Lyn my sister was cook. I was allowed out once a week and then had to be in by 10pm.
Washing day used to go on all day. We used to have to make a bowl of starch and then there were little bags of blue. We used to buy little squares of blue for about two pence (2d). Wash days started in the morning and was still going on at night. At home we all had a stool each that Mr Hillier the wheelwright made and at the end of washing day all the stools were scrubbed and the brushes and handles.
When someone died we always kept a light burning in the bedroom all night with the body. I'm not sure why but it was something everybody did because we kept the dead bodies at home those days. I remember Mr Hillier made my Dad's coffin and carried it from Brister End down across Vecklands on his shoulder to our house. Dad had been ill from January until May. We didn't have any electric and lit a fire upstairs in the grate to keep him warm.
Meat - well I know the Stevens got it on the Blackmarket. I used to stay with the Loveless family in Yeovil sometimes. They had soldiers billeted with them and they used to bring them chickens, towels and blankets!
I remember working for a mr Zimner too. When he had to go to London occasionally I used to have to post big parcels for Mrs Zimner to her daughter in London. I don't know what was in them but I remember they used to cost 2 shillings and 6 pence to post.
My brother Norman was in the Home Guard. He used to be up all night and then have to go to work all day.
I was born in Mill Lane, Yetminster and lived there for 82 years. Dad's people came from Scotland but my Mum never saw them. Dad was in the navy and was posted to Portland. My Mum had relations in Portland and used to go and stay sometimes and that was how they met. There was never enough money for her to go to Scotland to meet them. Dad used to be away in the navy for three years at a time.
When my brother Norman worked for Willis's in Sherborne he used to ask me if I wanted a lift into Sherborne and I used to have a ride on the cart - sitting on the board across the cart. He used to drop me in Westbury , Sherborne anbd I used to go up to Carters the butchers. They used to sell a big bag of bacon bits for 6d. It all made a difference as we only had £2 in wages coming in and then you had to pay rent and everything.
In service I used to get £20 a year and I used to have to pay a shilling a week stamp."
Yetminster, Dorset
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Cis Bell
at 97 is amazingly active and with an excellent memory.
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1939 - 1945
"I remember our Anderson shelter - it was on wooden planks on the floor with two bunk beds on either side. In the early days I slept behind my parents leather settee. If the ceiling fell we would have some protection from the beams.
I remember the 7th September 1940. It was my mother's birthday - a Saturday. Father was on Home Guard duty. I was woken up at 8 or 9pm and taken to the front door. I remember looking at a huge inverted ' sunset' - except it was in the south-east! The city was burning.
I remember sherbet fountains before the war - but they vanished completely and only came back in the 1950s. There was no ice cream during the war. I remember it came in large blocks in the late 1940s - it was pink and I was sick!
Occasionally we had oranges, no bananas and no pineapple - although you could get tinned pineapple towards the end of the war. I was surprised when I saw my first pineapple. It was identical in appearance to hand grenades! We had spent ones around. My father told the story of how you pulled the pin out and then threw them but occasionally they hit the top of the trench and fell back in. The Sergeant used to pick them up and throw them out again.
I remember kids queuing up to be evacuated. Mother decided at the last minute she couldn't go through with it. My teac her got in touch with my mother and offered us her house in North West London. My parents moved in and looked after it. We were 12 miles outside the city. My father worked in the city of London and travelled by tube when it was running. I remember the mesh on the tube windows - ? bakelite? - and the little slits on the tubes - a thin letterbox to see where you were. We used to take a bucket out searching for shrapnel. We also searched for rarer items. I remember Incendiary bombs - like a pipe and silvery with fins of a charcoal colour. I remember a long bomb with fins one end - sometimes whole or in pieces and also detonators - shiny mushrooms with a pointed head, the plunger - also tracer bullets - a brass cartridge part and parts of large shells. Father was in the Home Guard and went fire watching on the roof of the Bank of London. When we lived in Hornchurch, 12 miles into Essex, there was an aerodrome a mile away - the Hornchurch sector for the Thames and Thames Estuary."
Stoke Newington in East London
1939 - 1945
"We lived in a semi-detached house in Sheffield. I was two. I remember hearing Great-Grandfather had been a table knife grinder. I remember the noise of the bombers coming over Sheffield. Our shelter was underneath in the cellar. We had metal beds in it and I was in the underneath one. Neighbouts used to come in and share our shelter with us. They made it exciting - not frightening.
I was a long awaited child. My father worked in the steel works. I had wanted a teddy bear and one night be went into Sheffield's large department store called Atkinsons and came home with this teddy in his siren suit. Stores stayed open longer in those days so he was able to go in and buy it on his way home from work. He just got there in time. That night the store was bombed and raised to the ground. Teddy was the last toy sold there. He will be 70 on 12th December.!
I remember when the whole of Sheffield was bombed one night. 17 restaurants were hit in one night. Next day Dad returned from work and had see firement outside of a pork butchers frying bacon!
I remember spam - it was quite nice actually. It was one of those pseodo meats devised for the war I believe. I also remember corn beef and snoeck.
There was a prisoner of war camp on the Moors in the south part of Sheffield. There was a big prisoner of war camp there. I saw the officers with their long coats and peaked caps and their guards. One day one took a detour up our road! Mum ran up and fetched us in saying 'That's a bad man'."
Sheffield
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Brenda Spencer
Brenda joined our Memories Tea Party at Sherborne Museum and brought her very special teddy bear to show everyone.
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Do you remember having to make do and mend? Please submit your experiences.