1939 - 1945
"Nothing was ever wasted as very little was manufactured owing to the factories producing military uniforms, shells, bombs, planes, tanks and guns."
Thornford, 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
"At Yetminster school we made contact with an Australian soldier through the Red Cross who was in a prisoner of war camp. The Red Cross chose people who did not have any family. We used to write him letters and make cards and when it was Christmas we made things and gave a few pence towards buying him warm items for his Red Cross Christmas Parcel. Our schoolteacher said she had bought a wool vest and pair of long wool pants in large size as she said all Australians were big. When he sent us a thankyou card he said he was 5' 2" so he probably had to wrap them round twice!"
Yetminster, 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
"Some older pupils knitted balaclavas and socks for the troops. Some of us made blankets. I remember being told off for wasting a piece of unpicked wool. I tied a knot in the end half an inch up from the bottom as I was afraid it would come undone. Our teacher showed the class what I had done and said I had wasted wool by tying a knot!"
Yetminster, 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
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 - 1939
"We moved from Thornford to Yetminster in April 1939 so I had a few months to enjoy it before war broke out on September 3rd. I went to the Girls School in Church Street. They dug a trench on land behind the school and put a tin roof on it. It was supposed to be an air raid shelter but we always thought it was more dangerous to leave the school and walk down the side of the building to the field."
Yetminster, 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
"At school we had to save every bit of paper for the war effort. We were told three envelopes would pack a [gun] cartridge."
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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1941 - 1942
"In 1941 I had a cyst on my kneecap and was put in a plastercast from hip to ankle and had to stay in bed. On January 2nd 1942 I went down with scarlet fever. I was taken to the Yeatman Hospital, Sherborne for a month. Sherborne was full of scarlet fever. A woman was brought in with a really bad throat. By the time it was diagnosed it was too late. I had caught diptheria - or so they thought because one of the junior nurses also caught it and we were both transferred to the Isolation Hospital at Sturminster Newton because the Isolation House in Sherborne had burnt down. Sturminster Newton's was called Penny House, in Penny Street near the church. It was a big house with a big garden and it was my home for the next 3 and a half months. We weren't allowed visitors but even if we had been mother wouldn't have been able to visit because there was no petrol. Only farmers and essential workers could get it. Mother wrote to me every day. We weren't allowed to write letters. First of all I was in a scarlet fever ward with two other girls. When they finally diagnosed diptheria I was put in a ward on my own. I was sure I had caught it in Sherborne.
Tom Baker was the Ambulance Man and he lived at the Coffee Tavern at Thornford. Gran Garrett lived at Vine Cottage next door. She used to give Tom apples and eggs for me. He used to deliver it to the home but I rarely got it. A cleaner at the isolation hospital finally blew the whistle on what was happening. The nurses used to eat it. She was dismissed.
I spent my twelfth birthday with scarlet fever and diptheria in March 1942. Mother used her rations to make me a blancmange for a treat. She managed to come and see me. As I was slightly better she was allowed to stand at the ward door but not to come in. That was the closest she got to me. She was really pleased to see me walking. They had taken off the plaster cast."
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
"We only had basics at home. Everything got so bad. Nothing ordinary was being manufactured at all. Factories were taken over for munitions or for making army uniforms. I remember reading a tip in a magazine it said if you couldn't buy a comb comb your hair with a fork!. Combs were in short supply. I thought I must remember that."
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
"We were lucky living on the farm. Grandad kept the vegetable garden going and we weren't really short of anything. I made butter. I didn't make cheese until after the war. I won a scholarship to Agricultural College and learnt it there."
Dorset
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Connie Read
Connie Read of Leigh recalled...
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1939 - 1945
"Mum was expecting me. She was living in Newland, Sherborne. Dad was serving abroad. She was bombed out in the only Sherborne bombing raid. Dad was not allowed to come home. She was re-homed in a little cottage in Trendle Street."
Sherborne, Dorset
1939 - 1945
"John Porter recalls the women of his village, near Wilsden in Lincolnshire, held regular knitting groups. All spare wool was gathered and knitted into squares to be made into blankets for the bombed out families in London"
Wilsden, Lancashire
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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1939 - 1945
"We were not far from Biggin Hill airfield. We had big guns on wheels near us and a lot of plane activity. The guns did not actually have the range to hit the planes that flew over on their way to the city. I wasn't frightened. We lived in a bungalow. We were self sufficient. Kent had a lot of farms. Dad was a good gardener and Mum was a good cook. I was brought up on rations but we were not short of anything really. Dad kept rabbits, ducks and chickens so we had meat and eggs. I do remember the sweet rations though and thought it unfair that adults got a pound of sweets a month but children only three quarters of a pound!. We only had 2 ounces of butter a week. Word soon spread around the village when oranges came in. Mum would send me round to the greengrocers to stand in the queue. We didn't have bananas as you had to have a green ration book to have those. [a baby's ration book] Mum used to buy a large joint of beef and pot roast it so we had it hot on Sunday, cold on Monday and Tuesday and then the rest was minced. When that ran out Mum would make a bacon pudding. I didn't like it. It was the one meal I didn't like. She used to cut up the fatty ends of bacon and make it into a doughy pudding that was steamed in a handkerchief. I was evacuated to Birmingham when I was six. I hated it. After six weeks I wrote to Mum.
"Dear Mum. Take me home".
We were bombed a lot. We could see the fires over London during the blitz. Our bungalow was fire bombed. It destroyed the main bedroom but they managed to put the fire out before it reached the rest of the building. I remember the Doodlebugs too. The bombing was heavy. I remember the noise. When the noise stopped we ran inside and sheltered. A landmine hit the school next door. Fortunately it was empty at the time. We were smothered in plaster, glass and debris. The school was completely destroyed. A whole row of cottages was hit a short distance away and everyone was killed."
Kent and Birmingham
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Pam Whiting
Pam was the daughter of Florence, known as May, and Walter Harrison. They lived at St Paul's Cray, a village in Kent about 16 miles from the heart of London.
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1939 - 1945
"Popular Yetminster couple Kit and Harold Cheeseman, both 89, celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary today (Friday 30th). It was a chance cycle ride to Sherborne from her home at Marston Magna that led to them meeting and romance quickly blossomed. Harold worked for the then Greenham’s butchers in Sherborne and the couple enjoyed a quiet early morning wedding at West Coker. Less than a year later after war broke out Harold spent six years in the army serving with the Somerset Light Infantry, the Oxford and Bucks Regiment and after a mission to France attached to the Green Howard parachute unit found he was one of only three out of 50 to survive. During the war Kit had to leave her baby with her mother at West Coker, being called up for work at the Twine Factory at East Coker where she recalls working seven days a week from 8am – 6pm for the weekly wage of 12s 6d!
In the early 1950s the couple moved to Yetminster where they have lived ever since.
Their Platinum Anniversary will be spent with their family. They have five children, 10 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. "
Dorset
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Kit and Harold Cheeseman
Kit and Harold Cheeseman of Thornford Road, Yetminster who celebrate their Platinum (70th) Wedding Anniversary today (30th Jan)
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1939 - 1945
"I was one of the Salvage Corps with the rest of the village youths at Great Somerford, Chippenham, Wiltshire.
We collected newspaper for the war effort. There was a poster on the stable door where we sorted and stored it
'Help the National War Effort by Saving Waste Paper - Start today'. The stable was provided by the farmer Mr Cole of Hollow Street and organised by Lady Palmer of The Manor who supplied our transport, a horse and cart and sack trucks. We marched through the village carrying flags and banners in recognition of the war effort."
Wiltshire
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Olive Gibbs
Aged 82, nee Wakefield recalls.
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1938 - 1940
"In 1938 we were measured and fitted with gas masks during the Munich crisis. Trenches were dug for shelter from air-raids and some street shelters were built. Then the Munich Agreement was signed and we all thought we were safe from war! We bought a three bedroom house in Solihull. The war put an end to my school days. In the summer of 1940 I went to work in the staff office at Lewis's store in Bull Street, Birmingham Even during the war Lewis's held dinner dances in the restaurants. Sometimes Joe Loss provided the music. When Joe Loss wanted to see Mr O'Sullivan in a hurry he used to bring us a box of chocolates if we could give him an appointment straight away. Sweets were rationed and chocolate almost non-existant so he always did go straight in!"
Solihull
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Peggy Nash
nee Williams. Born 14th April 1925
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1938 - 1945
"The air raids were terrible. One awful night the ARP Wardens made us all leave our houses and go outside and lie in the ditch under the elm trees in the field. Shrapnel came down all around us. During the raid which went on for several hours there was also a storm of incendiary bombs. The noise was indescribable and we were so cold as it was November. Next day I walked the eight miles along the Coventry Road into the city to Lewis's. No buses could get through as so much of the Coventry Road had been blitzed. It was no wonder that the sky towards Birmingham had been so red the night before. Most of the places were still burning. When I eventually got within sight of Lewis's I found the road was barred because there was a 1000 lb unexploded bomb outside the main entrance to the store I had to turn round and walk home again. We had no gas, electricity or water. It was cut off for several days. There was one stand-pipe a quarter of a mile from the house and Mother and I took buckets there for water. Candles, when we could get them, provided light and we cooked what we could on the open fire or in the Valor oil-stove - if we had any paraffin. When we had a cousin coming we saved up three weeks of meat coupons to be able to buy a small joint. The night before was the night they bombed Coventry so badly and there was no gas, electricity or water. Father built a big fire in the grate and tied the joint up with string and suspended it from a poker in front of the fire. It took a long time to cook but it was delicious!"
Solihull
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Peggy Nash
nee Williams. Born 14th April 1925
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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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1939 - 1945
Peggy recalls her first wartime meeting with her future parents-in-law
"We went down to High Wycombe for me to meet Jim's parents. We went on the motor-bike and I was so scared they wouldn't like me. I liked them very much and we got on so well together. We sat on the settee and watched Mother making doughnuts in the way the American chefs had taught her. The ingredients were by courtesy of the American Army - otherwise it wouldn't have been possible! They were delicious and smothered in sugar - we couldn't remember anything like them!"
It was a different world than in Solihull.
The garden at Backlands was lovely. The top half had apple, damson, greengae, plum, pear and cherry trees. By the cherry trees Dad had arks in which he kept rabbits and ducks. Water had to be fetched from the well in the next field. One September morning we got up very early and walked along the lane to a field where we picked several pounds of mushrooms. We tok them home and Mother cooked some for us with bacon and eggs from the farm next door - an unbelievable breakfast with rationing as it was, but one of the perks of living in the country. I helped pick fruit which Mother would bottle, jam or turn into wine. She was a great wine-maker. She also cooked marvellous meals on a tiny iron-range that was coal-fired and I ate more food in that weekend than I had for a month!
Jim's mother was housekeeper at the American Air Force HQ at Wycombe Abbey and was in charge of the meals for the Officers' Mess. They used to give her parcels of food, especially sugar, whenever they could. They so often had a surplus as they weren't rationed like we were. It was a shock to their system when they first came over to England and found they couldn't just walk into a cafe or restaurant and order steak and chips or a hamburger.
We often went down to Wycombe on the motor-bike for the day. It was like another world - so peaceful and quiet - except for one weekend when a flying bomb ( doodlebug) landed in the next field and blew us out of bed! It killed a lot of chickens and turkeys
My parents had always insisted I hand over my unopened pay packet, though they didn't need it. I was given five shillings a week pocket money (25p) and had to buy everything. Neither of my parents gave us a wedding present. I had enough ration coupons for our three sheets and three blankets and Jim gave me the money for them - all we were allowed. It was difficult to have a white wedding in wartime. I wore a pale blue crepe dress, a navy blue bonnet shaped hat and navy court shoes and gloves and carried red roses. We were lucky as there was a very big wedding before ours and the church was full of flowers."
High Wycombe
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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
"Ruth can trace her history back to Benjamin Jesty, the Yetminster farmer who discovered that cow pox gave protection against the dreaded smallpox long before Jenner.
The couple met during the war. Eric had been an improver in Hull but had also been a member of the Territorial Army, so he was one of the first to be called up and it was the evacuation from Dunkirk that brought him to Yetminster where he was re-located to the Church Hall. He helped man the Lewis Gun at Yetminster cross roads and it was during this time that he met Ruth. Shortly afterwards Eric was posted to Glastonbury but this did not deter him for he cycled the 36 mile round trip to see her twice a week despite the difficult conditions as the signposts had been removed and there was a strict blackout. Ruth recalled everyone clubbed together because of the rationing to make her big day a success."
Yetminster, Dorset
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Ruth Foster
nee Jesty of Yetminster
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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
General War Effort
"Iron railings were taken down for aircraft.
Emergency lighting - we ran light bulbs from batteries. We bought candles by the pound weight (lb).
We had blackout curtains and also fitted slits to car headlights to reduce the amount of light visible from the air.
Newspapers were rationed - they were printed 1/12 size.
Red petrol was for commercial use. You got in trouble if you used it in your car."
South West
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Leigh Old VIcarage
Collective war time recollections at a taster session before their World War Two tea party.
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1939 - 1945
Entertainment
"There were no televisions but we all had radios - the wireless. We had Medium Wave and Long wave . We listened to the Home Service and Luxembourg, Lord Haw Haw, Workers Playtime and Henry Halls Guest Night.
Crystal sets had accumulators.
We danced the Jitterbug.
Vera Lynn was very popular.
We used to sing "I fell in love with Mary at the Dairy".
The soldiers billeted in the villages used to sing it when the saw the girls set off to milk the cows in the fields."
South West
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Leigh Old VIcarage
Collective war time recollections at a taster session before their World War Two tea party.
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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 - 1945
"Geoff House "I was at Church Farm, Hilfield, Dorset during the war. We kept quite a large flock of sheep - not Dorset Horn's. white ones, I think they were Cheviots. People used to come in to shear them but I remember I had to pack the wool up - roll it properly. We got on alright during the war. We coped but in latter years we didn't have a lot of help because people had been called up. We didn't have any Land Girls to help us and we didn't have any evacuees staying with us either. We managed to get the harvest i. If you had been doing it all your life it just came naturally. We saw planes going over.
Edna Ridout recalled the Sherborne bombing raid. I was at a small dairy farm at Batcombe, Dorset. I remember the Sherborne bombing raid well. We had to do the milking - by hand. I had my three legged stool. It didn't take long really to milk a cow when you got used to it.
Geoff House recalled they kept some cows too but had a machine "sometimes we had to turn one of the cups over if the teat was a useless one or bad. Father made cheddar cheese. He paid an extra penny on top of the dairy price to buy up the milk in the village to make it. We had a cheese loft. I had to turn the cheese. We had coolers. I remember putting the milk into churns. I had to take the churns out into the road where we had a stand for them for the lorry to collect them. They were very heavy. We kept Shorthorns at first and later Friesians. They gave more milk.
Edna added " they were lovely cattle the Shorthorns. I remember Yeovil Market staying open during the war. The animals were eventually collected in a lorry. Geoff added " we used Tites, the hauliers, to collect ours."
Edna said " we didn't make cheese but we did make butter for our own use. It wasn't hard work when it was for yourself but it was hard when you had to make a lot to sell."
Geoff added "there were no plastic bags. We used to order ready printed greaseproof wrappers for the butter.""
Hilfield, Dorset
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Geoff House and Edna Ridout nee Davis
wanted to be interviewed together. Both from local farming families they felt they could jog each others memories - and it worked! Neither recalled any major shortage, except manpower, during the war as both were fairly self sufficient.
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1939 - 1945
"I was living in London when war broke out and was evacuated to Devon. My first place was in Honiton but it wasn't a very nice billet. They expected me to look after their child all the time and I wasn't used to that at home where I was the youngest! My sister was evacuated too but she cried so much she only stayed a week and went home. I stayed three years. I passed my school exam and went to Axminster High School. I had been living in South West London and we went to Devon by train - all of us as a school on a whole train. We didn't know where we were going. My parents didn't know either. We went with our suitcases and were picked up by the people who had volunteered to take us in. My lady was at the station to meet us. Her husband was a Scout Master but we didn't see him very often. I think he was involved in war work and working away. I liked the countryside. My grandmother lived in the countryside and that was where I finished up eventually and went to school in Reading. I didn't find it boring or quiet. My Gran was good at turning her hand at anything. At the lady's who had us at Axminster - mother, daughter and grandchild as well - we didn't have much in the wau of eating - very poor really. The rations went to the lady of the house and she eeked it out. Clothes - can't remember much about clothes. My mother was a seamstress. I expect she made us clothes. Mum and Dad came down separately at times to see me when I was in Devon.
My Gran in Reading - now that was fun. Half of the field behind her house was the REME HQ. There was a big camp there and so we half expected to be bombed but we never were. We saw the planes going over. There was a trememndous amount of activity. I went home before the end of the war. I finished school in the December and I went home early in 1945. That was at the time when the flying bombs and rockets were coming over London. We heard the rockets coming over and this tremendous whoosh and then the bombs fell. My sister was standing next to the oven and they dropped a bomb and the front door was blown off and the house was damaged and my sister went deaf - but it was only temporary. We saw a lot of houses destroyed. It was very frightening. I went to work for George Payne - they made Payne's Poppets, the chocolates. I started from scratch. They needed a young person in the office. I had a good training from filing to computers. Then they moved down to Devon after the war. I can't remember them being short of chocolate.
Nylon stockings were scarce. We did get some but I can't remember how we used to get hold of them!"
Devon and Reading
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
1939 - 1945
"My sister was five years older than I was and had left school after School Certificate because, although she was clever, there were not the opportunities for scholarships to university in those days. She worked for the Post Office Headquarters in Finsbury Circus in London and lived on the south side of the river. My mother and I went up to London to help celebrate her 18th birthday on September 8th, which coincided with the first bombs dropped on London. I had a siren suit, which I had never before worn, and we took shelter in the basement and were impressed by the red glow of fires. Audrey took us to quieter places, like Kew Gardens and Richmond Park but when we came to go home Waterloo Station was closed and we had to go from Clapham Junction. When we got home my father had had a visit from my old Sunday School teacher, who brought flowers and expressed her sorrow at my supposed death! My sister was evacuated up to Harrogate soon afterwards and joined the Land Army."
London
1944 - 1945
"I went up to Oxford in October 1944 and was there on V.E. Day, which I well remember. I suppose rations were tighter than usual and we grumbled at bread and potatoes and the miserable butter ration and bought our own cakes. We lent each other clothes for variety, but everyone was in the same boat regarding coupons and rationing so we accepted any shortage and laughed at those who had pearls and twin-sets to wear! I used my brother's Fleet Air Arm trousers for rowing! We looked enviously at smart clothes in the shops - but we would probably have done so anyway. I took my bicycle to Oxford of course but travelled there by train.
Later, on V.J. Day I was home in Bournemouth and joined in the dancing on the promenade, but it did not have the same excitement as I did not know many people.
So, not much about cooking, or make do and mend, because that wasn't my scene and my mother seemed to cope somehow. In the country we could get eggs and honey and we could afford the sweet ration and tinned food that others could not. I was not used to fancy meals and clothes anyway, though when I had to cook for myself, in London after leaving college, when rationing was still on, I was more aware of shortages and limitations. I thought I would rather like to be a Wren in the "next" war!"
Oxford and Bournemouth
1939 - 1945
"Perhaps because I was growing up in wartime I found it a source of new experiences rather than a drudge. Even the blackout with its window strips made me think "At last we can have Tudor windows!""
South West
1939 - 1945
"My first memories of the wartime era are as a schoolboy in the late 1930s becoming aware of the hushed tones of my elders on talking of the European News. I became a Corporal in the OTC (Officers Training Corps). Our equipment was still of the First World War era - no wireless and our Dispatch Riders were mounted on horseback! We wore puttees and formed fours and were only allowed to read serious newspapers - the Daily Mirror with its strip cartoon of Jane was forbidden.
At the outbreak of war I was on a three generation holiday afloat in Norfolk and, whilst keeping in touch daily with the family business in London, we decided not to navigate back to base because it seemed there was a lot of unnecessary ill informed panic in the big city, which was confirmed when we returned a fortnight later. The our panic started because we had to make blacoouts, prepare safe areas and fit shields to our vehicle headlights.
We had to support such civilian groups as the Local Defence Volunteers, the Auxiliary Fire Service and the Royal Observer Corps and observe Air Raid Precautions. We assisted with the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force. For this we had a small yacht available on the Medway but although registered with large authorised inscriptions on both sides, she was laid-up and so out of commission. Some of our staff were leaving due to Conscription and were replaced by retired members. Then day and night bombing made the journey from the suburbs to the city a challenge because of all the new diversions and the road signs had been removed, as they had nationwide for reasons of security. Phrases such as "careless talk costs lives" - "be like dad, keep mum" - "dig for victory" - "make do and mend" and "waste not want not" were often heard.
We were finally fire bombed out of London. This was the only time my father was reduced to tears when he saw our family firm of stationers and newspaper makers, established in the 18th Century, reduced to a shell. We needed special dispensation to enter the building. There was some surprising salvage in the cellars where the lack of oxygen had left the antracite unconsumed and the bonded methylated spirits still in its Winchesters had failed to explode! The safe on the ground floor was a complete melt down but our industrial textiles stored as heavy weight rolls on steel racks were found marketable after severe trimming!
As an indentured apprentice one of my jobs was to make an inventory of the building's contents to support our war damage insurance claim. Whilst our turnover and revenue in this trade were seriously reduced this was somewhat offset by diversification as a government sub-contractor working from home in engineering on behalf of the war effort.
A twelve hour day was followed by home guard fire watching and anti-looting patrols. We were now fully kitted out , including bayonets, .300 rifles and five rounds of ammo. Our training was on-going from Lewis and Vickers machine guns and eventually a Tommy gun. We also had to maintain a flame thrower kept ready at our local road block and practice throwing live hand grenades. We did have a few field telephones but mainly relied on the Morse Code and signalling with flags. On the lighter side we went recruiting with our drum and fife band. As a former ceremonial bugler from my schooldays I was reduced to clashing the cymbals!
Although I was in a reserved occupation, call up papers duly arrived from the RAF, who were short of engineers. After some four months initial training I was posted to Ayr, where we were under canvas in a bell tent on cold, wet, soggy ground in winter, followed by Chester where conditions were much better. Here we became sufficiently skilled to be able, as one of several teams, to fetch an aircraft in for a service, change a Merlin in-line or Hercules radial engine, including all the associated components and ground test all within 24 hours. For a couple of months we were working a seven day week, 12 hours a day. For some of us this was overpowering, bearing in mind the care needed in servicing an aircraft; so we volunteered as a break for guard duty - two hours on and four hours off - which was much easier.
My unrelated but subsequent posting to a salvage and repair unit was in Kent. This was a compassionate posting due to the illness of my mother, which led to my being billeted at home and travelling on a camp bike. One of my family obligations was to have a hot meal of rationed food ready for me any evening on my return from duty. However my movements were erratic, being dictated by the repair work on aircraft anywhere in Kent, which often lasted several days. On these occasions we lived mainly on hay-box meals. I had one break due to being sent to an isolation hospital with german measles.
At this time doodle bugs were constantly arriving. For shelter I once dived under a petrol bowser, which was not exactly intelligent, but there was little time to think! So in a way it was a relief to find myself being kitted out for an unknown overseas posting. In the event, after a three week tropp ship journey, including several days of horrible sea sickness, I arrived in India for a posting 300 miles south wesdt of Calcutta at a sdtaging post in the Bengal jungle. This was a complete change in life.
Boredom was the chief problem. To counter this I became mis-employed as a Motor Transport fitter/driver. This meant I had a gharrie to drive, which was a real luxury because it was relatively dust free. Never the less I had to visit a hospital in Calcutta with infected ears and impetigo. Following this I had a period of convalesence in the Himalayas with a return journey via Agra - where I missed a connection and so was able to visit the Taj Mahal. My final flink, early in 1946, was to collect, with a colleague, a radar truck from Bombay and deliver it via Delhi to Calcutta. It was a week's journey of some 1500 miles styled as a single vehicle convoy, being serviced all found by Western Oriental Gentlemen. This included their rations which consisted mainly of rice and stew which did not impress us - but the journey did. It was mainly single tarmac roads with a bullock cart dust track on either side. The bridges were not really meant for heavy vehicles. Driving over the sleepers of a railway bridge was sometimes the alternative, especially when pontoons were not up to the job. On arrival at camp I was told to pack my belongings because my discharge papers had arrived. I was flown to Bighty with three refuelling stops. What a sudden change on arrival after the tropics to find a very cold English winter. Thus ended my war.
In retrospect the wartime experiences, whilst at times severely harsh and tiring, hastened my preparation towards becoming a self-sufficient person as already started by school discipline and the ethos of the Boy Scouts. Certainly there were a few lighter moments and perks when in uniform. On off duty times in the UK we could visit cinemas, dance halls and pubs; perks included postage paid letter forms, usually censored, free bus travel and an occasional furrlough or 36 hour pass; the use of service men's clubs such as TocH, Salvation Army, YMCA and WVS. One Christmas time with two others I was invited into the home of a large family of WVS girls whose boy friends were overseas - that was a very pleasant and totally unexpected surprise - which led to a pen friendship for the duration of the war.
However there was no real let up from the mental pressures of the times - the blackouts and bombing.
On returning to civvy street I was able to join a tennis club and swimming club."
Norfolk and International
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Denzil Goddard
a resident of Leigh Old Vicarage wanted to record his wartime memories.
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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 Martinstown, near Dorchester. My brother was a butcher's boy in the town and used to cycle to work. He then had to cycle round with small deliveries in the week to the villages in a big basket on the front of the bike. During the war he was called up and I was leaving school so I was offered the job. I had to learn to mend punctures and needed to on occasions. The shop didn't want to use their petrol ration any more than they had to so I had to take round what was available and take orders for weekend deliveries that were made with the van. I had never cycled so far in my life. It did have a few perks though because the butcher would wrap up a few bits of meat for my mum if there was anything and she was really pleased to see it when I got home and always managed to make us a nice meal although it was often only meat scraps and trimmings."
Martinstown, Dorchester
1939 - 1945
"We were born near Sherborne, Dorset but when Tom returned from the First World War there was no work so we had to move to Bow in Devon. He had learnt to drive during the war and the village Doctor was looking for a chauffeur. All of the Devon houses had quite big gardens but hardly any of them were behind the houses. They were on the other side of the road or behind another house! Tom grew everything we needed and we were lucky because I was never very strong and often needed the Doctor - but we never got a bill!
There was a woman in the village who said she lived "by the Lord". She never bought any food and there was always something left on her doorstep for her. There would be knocks at the door and when she looked out there was food there. This went on through the war too. There was a lot of bombing at Exeter 16 miles away but we were lucky in the country."
Bow, Devon
Do you remember having to make do and mend? Please submit your experiences.