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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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 - 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
"Jean got a job working at the Headquarters of the 228th American Hospital at Haydon Park, near Sherborne in the grounds of Sherborne Castle. The camp hospital, which treated injured servicement returning to this country, became fully operational on September 18th 1943. From April the following year almost 1200 beds became available.
Jean recalled being given a box of 12 pairs of nylon stockings by the Americans which she shared with her friends but also sadly recorded the demise of her Scottish home made kilt when she was accidentally pushed backwards on to one of the coal stoves and the seat was completely burnt out of it! Her mother was really cross as the kilt had been made to preserve the ration of clothing coupons.!
More of Jean's memories can be found in her book "The 228th American Hospital at Haydon Park, nr Sherborne" a copy of which is in the Sherborne Museum Book Collection.
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Sherborne, Dorset
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Jean Treasure
fortunately recorded her wartime memories in a book which makes interesting reading as sadly she has now died.
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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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1939 - 1945
"I was on the borders of Northants in the country at Hatfield. My future husband worked for De Havillands - a reserved occupation. We were getting married on the fourth of November. We found people were moving out of London. There was a new housing estate at St Albans but they were being bought up by people moving out of the city. We brought forward plans for our wedding. We had relations in Leicester at Poddington on the Bedfordshire border. Villagers got together with cars to bring them from the station for the wedding. My husband had Saturday and Sunday off and then had to get straight back. When we got to St Albans our house wasn't finished. Our furniture had come down the week before. The steps had still not been done. Nothing happened for a few months. A plane off loaded its bombs on its way back from the city and they fell on Kell End Hospital. De Havilland's workers had shelters but these concertina-ed and collapsed and people were killed so my husband would never go in one. I remember we were having supper when bombs came screaming down. My husband and I and the dog took shelter in the cupboard under the stairs. When we came out our house was intact but there was cocoa all across the table, spilled by the shock waves. My husband was working on toolmaking. He started at 7.30am and had to cycle five miles into work in the dark and would be there all hours. There was a blackout on cycle lamps. The lamps were covered with black with only a small slit cut in it to let a little light out. We used to club together to get enough petrol and shared and have people rides. It was very quiet. I became pregnant. The general lying in hospital was evacuated to the Bishops Palace at St Albans. I arrived there and shortly afterwards Staff Nurse said 'I have a surprise for you. You are having twins'. I had two girls but not identical. It was a bit of a shock and in wartime a problem as we had a pram for one. My husband saw an ad for a twin pram. The air raid warden came with twin gas masks and I was supposed to sit and pump enough air for both of them! Rationing - well we were lucky with twins because they got extra. We kept ducks amd hens and grew tomatoes and currants. We had a big pram and then we needed a pushchair. We had to get a Doctor's certificate to get a twin pushchair! You couldn't get identical clothing for twins - but I didn't want to in any case - and mine weren't identical. We stayed there all of the war. Although a married woman and with twins I was still called up for war work. I was sent to Peakes Coat Factory - once a specialist firm but then producing uniforms for the troops. I wasn't very good. I broke the sewing machine needle. I did get a suit there at cost price. They still made specialist coats that were sent to America.
When the twins were three they used to walk everywhere quite happily. I took them out for a walk on the edge of St Albans. I remember they were dressed nicely in little kilts. We went to the Marshallwick Estate - there was a piece of land there that had never been built on. The estate hadn't been finished when the war started. They weren't allowed to build any more houses during the war. I remember the whole area was covered with a crowd of German prisoners of war. They all stopped work and looked at the twins. I think they were getting the land ready to plant crops. It was at the end of the building site. Houses cost £500 then.
My husband had to work at his bench standing on concrete under electric light all day long. It wasn't good for him. He had had a motorbike accident and working like that caused him to have an ulcerated leg. I was supposed to soak bandages with cod liver oil -you can imagine the state of my new sheets! We got to see a consultant. He was the King's Doctor! He got rid of the cod liver oil and stripped the veins in the leg instead - and that cured it. They don't do that today."
Hatfield, Northants
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Denise Richards
now lives at St John's Almshouse, Sherborne, Dorset but recalled her wartime 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 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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Do you remember having to make do and mend? Please submit your experiences.