1939 - 1945
"There was hardly any food at the hospital. We used to get breakfast at 7am. It was a single piece of bread and margarine with lard on it. A cooked dinner was served at 12. It was swimming in water. That was supposed to be gravy. Tea was at 3.30pm and was a sandwich and a small bit of cake. Nothing else was served after that. When I was allowed home I did nothing but eat. I put on nearly a stone in a month!"
Dorset
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Heather Helliar
Heather Helliar moved to Yetminster while still at primary school, shortly after war broke out. Her grandparents still lived at Thornford and she recalls.
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1939 - 1945
"I went to Westminster Bridge Road Primary School. I was evacuated with my younger brother Peter who was four. I was almost six as my birthday was the 7th October. We thought it was an adventure. It was like going on holiday. Our headteacher Mrs Campbell, Mr Foster and Miss Dobson came with us. I remember we were given barley sugar sticks to suck on the journey. We all enjoyed those. We stopped at Templecombe Station [ some eight miles outside the town, although Sherborne had its own station] and had to get off the train. I don't know why it didn't steam into Sherborne. I remember it was dark. We had to get on to coaches and were transported to the Digby Hall in Digby Road. It was very late by then and we spent the night at Cmdr. Nash's house in Sandford Road [ now called Dymor]. In the morning Peter and I were collected by Win and Jim Gould and went to the home at 2 Coombe Terrace. Win was organist at St Paul's Church Coombe, a red brick building now an engineers, on the other side of the road. She also played the organ at Sandford Orcas and Poyntington and walked to those villages as they didn't have any transport of their own. I didn't enjoy having to go to church three times on Sundays. I sang in the choir. I did enjoy collecting the stamps for good attendance at the Sunday School. They were very colourful and we stuck them in our albums.
The Goulds were such nice people. We had a good home. Jim was a carpenter - the best in the street. Jim had a large garden that stretched right up from Coombe to Marston Road where he had his workshop. They had a large chicken called Henrietta who laid well and they grew most of their own food. The meal I didn't like was fried egg and mashed potato!
At home father worked on the railway, an essential job so he wasn't allowed to join the RAF. Mum and my younger brother Bill were evacuated to Exeter but they were bombed there and evacuated to Wells! Mum and Dad sent me a pair of heavy boots once. I didn't like them at all and called them 'clodhoppers' and tried to kick them and wear them out.
We were able to take part in potato picking and paid six pence an hour. We had to walk to Crackmoor on the outskirts of Milborne Port to pick up conkers. They were packed into wooden barrells and once full sold off to the Council Offices at Ludbourne Road, Sherborne and were used as pig food. We also picked rose hips which were rich in Vitamin C. When we had filled a two pound kilner jar full we could take those to the Council Offices and wer paid two pence. They were made into rose hip syrup. Mum used to send us a three pence postal order each week from London. We used to go to Woolworths. They still had sweets. We used to spend it on MIlky Ways and Golly Bars - these were toffee strips and you got four for a penny. We always managed to get treats. Sweets were not rationed then and we also had a tuck shop at school. We could also get ice cream.
Jim made a shelter under the stairs of plywood with benches round it. When the air raid sirens went off we had to hammer on the wall to Mrs Penny next door because she was deaf and couldn't hear the siren.
When it was harvest time we used to go into the fields to catch rabbits. All of the children were given a stick and we had enough to stand right around the edges of the field. As the harvest was cut the rabbits would go into the centre of the field and when the machines got closer they would run out and we would kill them. We weren't allowed to take home all the ones we caught. We had to put them all into a pool and the farmer would share them out at the end of the day.
We would also go out sticking - collecting sticks for the fire.
We used to play a lot of games. We had a darts board and we also used to do a lot of drawing. Paper was not in short supply. Jim was good artistically, being a cabinet maker. I remember painting a large picture of a parrot and it won a local competition.
The countryside seemed strange to us. We were frightened of cows at first but soon got used to them. We thought the hills around us were mountains!
I remember the only bombing raid that hit Sherborne in 1940. I was walking home from school. I remember at least one evacuee was killed in it. I remember the strong smell of gas in the air afterwards and Uncle Jim going out with his first aid kit on patrol. One night I heard a German plane low overhead. We knew it was going to crash it was so low but we boys were not allowed to get up and watch it. The men saw it in flames. It crashed in Poyntington village a few milesd away and the crew were buried in the churchyard for some time. After the war their bodies were returned to Munich.
We used to search for bits of plane and shrapnel to keep.!
We kept in touch with the Goulds for the rest of their lives."
Sherborne, Dorset
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James Whiting
James now lives at Seaton, Devon after falling in love with the countryside after being evacuated to Sherborne on the 2nd September 1939 from London.
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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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1942 - 1942
"Christmas Day 1942 we had Lieutenant Knott and Sandy Powell , a Lance Corporal from the A.A. Battery to dinner. Somewhere father had obtained a small chicken and Mother made a pudding from dired elderberries, carrots and apples and about a tea cupful of dried fruit. The cake was much the same but the marzipad was cooked semolina and flour with almond essence she had saved from before the war and the icing was a little of our sugar ration and dried milk powder. We were very proud of that cake! There weren't any crackers, dates, nuts, oranges, tinned fruit - and there were no Christmas trees!
The rations for one person per week were 4oz of bacon - usually very, very fat, 2 ounces of butter, 2 ounces of preserves (jam and marmalade), 1 ounce of cheese, a shillings worth of meat (5p) which amounted to about 10 ounces of fresh meat. You were supposed to get one fresh egg a week but it was often five or six weeks before they came in and you had to queue at the shop by 8am if you hoped to get 2 - no matter how many ration books you had. COupons also had to be used for that rare tin of Spam. It worked out roughly at one tin of something each month. Tea was also rationed at 2 ounces a week and sugar was 8 ounces but soon went dow to 4 ounces. At one time even bread and potatoes were rationed.
There were long queues at butchers hoping to get 2 sausages or a slice of liver as they weren't rationed. Many children were years old before they ever saw a banana, orange, lemon or grapefruit. There was a small ration of soal and soap powder. Every scrap of soap had to be used. Small pieces were kept until there were enough pieces to melt down with a little water to make it soft. Clothes were rationed too and shoes had wooden soles because of a shortage of leather.
Knickers and petticoatds were made out of worn out nighties and frocks were turned into blouses or skirts and mens things cut down and remade into childrens clothes. Worn out knitted things were unpicked and multicoloured striped jumpers became fashionable. Sheets were turned sides to the middle and then made into pillowcases. There were no nylon stockings only cotton lisle ones. We dyed our legs with permanganate of potash and then drew a line up the back with a brown crayon for a seam. If you got caught in a real downpour the brown went blotchy!
Father once brought home half of a silk parachute. We didn't ask where he got it from. We turned it into nighties and undies.
At the end of July 1942 I was 'called up' and sent to the Warwickshire Agricultural Committee Hostel (War Ag) to work as an assistant cook. It was hard work. You were lucky if you had a day off a week and usually worked over 60 hours a week. It was better than working in a noisy munitions factory."
Solihull
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Peggy Nash
nee Williams. Born 14th April 1925
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1941 - 1947
"I was born at Sutton Bingham, Somerset. Our cottage was pulled down when they built the reservoir in the 1950s. I left school in 1941 when I was 14 years old and went to work at Netherton Farm, Closworth three miles away. I worked there three years before I was old enough to join the Land Army as a dairymaid. I started looking after the ducks, chicken, geese and turkeys. I fed the pigs and the calves and had to hand milk the cows until they had a milking machine. There was no electricity. We had paraffin lanterns for lighting the house and the cow stalls and had to carry them with us. Then we had a milking machine powered by a Lister ending. I had a yoke to carry two large buckets of milk to the dairy at a time. It was put into a large bowl and left to strain after it passed through the cooler. We grew kale, turnips, cow cabbages, sugarbeet, mangels, potatoes and kale. It was hard work hoeing all of the crops between milking times. We still had horses to do the mowing and reaping. I met my husband Leslie in 1947. Everything was rationed. We had to have coupons to get the furniture. All we could get was a sideboard, a table and four chairs, one armchair, a bed and a dressing-table!
Edna and her husband Leslie now live at Ryme Intrinseca, about two miles from where she worked during the war. Leslie was delighted to be presented with a long service medal for his lifetime's work on the farm at the Dorset County Show."
Sutton Bingham, Somerset
1939 - 1945
"At 100 Dorothy recalled
"I was the youngest of four. My father, Charles, was shepherd on the farm and when he died my oldest brother Harry took over. I remember him coming home from the First World War. I was eight when he was called up. By the time the Second World War started, Mother, Elizabeth, had a heart condition so I was exempted from war work because I had to look after her. We were lucky in the country and being on the farm we had most things that we needed. I did gloving at home. Mine were leather samples of the highest quality that were sent out to store buyers. Ours was such a small village and off of the main road so the war didn't affect us a lot. We had our garden and I made jam.""
Closworth near Yeovil
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Dorothy Loveless
Lived all her life at Closworth near Yeovil, Somerset in the cottage where she was born.
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1939 - 1945
"I was at school when war broke out but I left before I had finished my education. My first job was supposed to be in a laboratory but it turned out to be making aircraft plywood. I didn't stay long! My second job was supposed to be hush-hush but turned out to be making perspex for aircraft. I didn't like it and only stayed nine days!. Then I went to work for the Canada Life Insurance Company where I did stay a little while but I wanted to work outside so I joined the Land Army. I was sent to a big house in Buckinghamshire as Under Gardener. The old gardener had retired but his two sons who took on the garden were called up and he had to come out of retirement. We dug up the tennis courts and grew potatoes and on the other courts we kept chickens. It was there I learnt to milk because they had two cows. The chauffeur/groom took on the hedging.
We had plenty of vegetables and the cook was still there so we lived ok. I was 18 then. Clothing was rationed but that didn't worry me much as I wasn't very fashion conscious. When the groom was on holiday I had to learn to milk the cows and found I liked it. It was unusual for girls to like milking the cows so I was sent to the other end of Bucks where there was a much larger herd of 50 cows. I was there for several years as cow man. They had one of the early dairies - a milking parlour. I wasn't very mechanical really but they found I was very good at keeping the parlour running. Then I was sent to another herd where they had Shorthorns. Shortly afterwards they changed to real Jersey cows that had come from the Channel Islands. I liked those a lot. I used to make butter, cream and cheese for the house in small amounts but not for sale. I was in the Land Army for over ten years but I still haven't got my badge. I finally left to get married. We lived quite well during the war. Make do and Mend was what we were used to. Compared to the 1920s and 1930s life was actually better. During the recession there was real hardship. We had grown up used to having to use everything and waste nothing. Nothing was left over."
Sheila continued to like her animals and kept and milked her goats until recent years."
Cheshire
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Ted and Sheila Babbidge
nee Nash. Sheila's story. She is now 85 and living in Cheshire.
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1939 - 1945
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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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
1943 - 1954
"My family was part of the Polish community at Haydon Park on the outskirts of Sherborne. I remember the galvanise roofs of the huts. They had a door at each end and were divided with one family at each end. The winters were very cold. We only had a small pot bellied stove for heat. Mum used to heat the water on top of it. I remember my Dad carrying me to the hospital hut when I was very ill with measles. When some of the families had been re-homed in the local community the hut was opened up and we had the whole hut. A new small range was fitted which was much warmer. I lived there until about 1954.
The camp was built in 1943 by the Americans as Field Hospital 228 and consisted mostly of nissen huts. Conditions were very basic when the camp was handed over to house refugees. NAFFI furniture on site was used to furnish the huts which did not have running water. There were communal washing areas and toilets. There was a central canteen and two meals a day were provided with breakfast and other small cooking needs carried out in the huts."
Sherborne, Dorset
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Liz
Sherborne Museum would like to hear from anyone else who lived at Haydon Park Camp and hope to hold a reunion at the Museum in 2011
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1939 - 1945
"The family had been there over 200 years. It was a mixed farm so we had everything we wanted - pork, eggs, milk, butter, cheese and vegetables. No one had served in the forces as they had reserved occupations although my father was a member of the Home Guard. They used to meet in a hut in a sand pit but there was usually nothing for them to do. I stayed with my aunt in Winchester for two years. We had a lot of troop movements leading up to D Day. I remember the troops marching on the roads too. She had American soldiers billetted with her. We used to hear our bombers going out on raids. They went overhead both at the farm and at Winchester. Sometimes we saw them coming back with vapour trails behind some of them who just made it home.
At the farm I remember hearing the empty cartridge cases raining down on the galvanised roofs of the farm buildings and the noise it made. We weren't really short of anything. We never wasted anything in any case so it was nothing new to us."
Eastleigh, near Winchester
1939 - 1946
"Dorothy celebrated her 100th birthday on the 20th February 2010 and will be interviewed at the end of March with her family. Dorothy recalls being in the Wrens "I worked my way up to Chief Petty Officer. After the war it was very difficult to find a job and then I applied to be cook/housekeeper at Melbury House in Dorset in 1946. I loved it and stayed there until I retired in 1970." Dorothy retired to Park Cottage on the Melbury Estate and is looking forward to a special birthday afternoon tea with the Hon. Mrs Charlotte Townshend of Melbury House. She will be talking about her wartime years, thought to be connected with the code breakers at Bletchley Park and her post war years of rationing and how they coped at a big house. Dorothy has been a resident of the Leigh Old Vicarage Care Home, who have been key partners in the Make do and Mend Project, for just over a year."
Dorset
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Dorothy Darknell
Dorothy is pictured with her nephew and godson Rowland Cook of Oxford and great-niece Rosalind Cook
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1939 - 1945
"I was 11 and we lived at Petties Farm, next to the White Hart. We kept about 12 cows in those days. During the war we had to plough up a lot of our land and grow a lot of crops for animal feed too. We rented about an acre and a half of allotment land in the village as well and grew feed crops and rotated it with potatoes. We weren't really short of anything during the war. We had rationing but we grew most of the things we needed as we had a large vegetable garden too. When rationing came in and meat was short mother started keeping a lot of rabbits so we ate a lot of rabbit meat and occasionally there was a pheasant or two. Then mother started keeping Aylesbury ducks as well so sometimes we had a duck to eat. We had poultry and eggs and then mother started making our own butter too. My sister Betty and I didn't like the home made butter very much so mother and father ate that and we had the butter ration!
At school we were taught to go and lie in a ditch if there was a bombing raid and the shrapnel would go over us. We used to get a lot of air raid warnings and were used to the siren going off and didn't take a lot of notice of that but one day [30th September 1940] after school I was on my own and that was the only time during the war that I was really frightened. My job was to go to the allotments and gather rabbit food - dandelions and leaves, anything they would eat. The siren sounded. It was a cloudy day and I never saw the planes but then the noise started and I saw the black smoke start to rise in the distance and realised it was for real. It was the only bombing raid of the war but I remember how frightened I was. I remember the evacuees coming too. We had lots of them from all over London. They used to walk miles to Yetminster School each day from the villages - there weren't any school buses in those days - and then they had to walk home again afterwards."
Yetminster, Dorset
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Colin King
of Yetminster remembers his wartime schooldays at home in Yetminster.
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1939 - 1945
"Margaret Jessie Young ATS Southern Command no W/252589
"I wasn't going to be left alone in the village, all my friends were off to the war so I might as well. The village was in Leicestershire - hardly any cars about in the 1940's. Looking back now the village was idyllic, everyone knew everyone else and looked out for one another. When the church bell tolled everyone knew who had died - so many tolls for a man, so many for a woman and so many for a child. Of course there was chapel three times on a Sunday - where I learned to spell Congregational and got my finger stuck in a knot hole during the sermon! Family and neighbours brought a taste of their baking and cakes to share and on winter days Aunt Polly would tap, tap, tap up the Entry if snow was lying, with her pattens on, carrying a steaming jug of soup. It was good to grow up there.
As I said I wasn't being left behind so on the bus to Leicester and volunteers for the Navy (No - they only wanted Commander's daughters then), the Air Force (No, I didn't want to be a cook), the Army - yes!
I could already drive after working for the Co-op milk round in the worst of a winter and delivering milk, which was then rationed, to people in three villages. I could certainly drive being taught by the Dairy Manager, Ernie Wilkinson, on the light Ford lorry. All I was required to learn was map reading and how to maintain the vehicle. When I returned home and told my mother, she began to cry. She was ironing and I shall always remember and I wondered why the tears.
I was called up and went to the Barracks at Wigston, only a stone's throw from home. I was issued with khaki issue, had various inoculations, began drill or square bashing after that, and there was more to come when I was sent to Camberley in Surrey. I never felt so fit in my life.
Camberley was good; drill, car maintenance all being taught and being with ladies ( all well off) in the FANYs - First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. I never saw the lot I was with doing any First Aid, just good drivers, teachers and ride motor bike now and again with lengths of bloomers showing!
After being taught how to do the daily maintenance on a vehicle, how to read a map with headlights half-shaded, I was posted to Roche Court, Farnham, Hants, driving lorries day and night.
Next I was sent to Salisbury to Longford castle, billeted at the Moat, Britford. We drivers, leather straps over the top of our caps and the wheel symbol stitched on the bottom of our sleeves, we were the elite of Longford. We were called upon to drive top ranking Officers in big cars, Ford USs, Humber Snipes. Then on lighter duty to ferry girls from the Moat to Longford in the small covered PU's. On one drive the steering went and I careered along the boulders down Longford Castle drive. I was on a charge the next day but I can't remember the outcome as D Day was approaching and life was hectic. I did doze off when driving the Medical Officer, who took over the wheel and ordered three days rest!
We drove everywhere, in Dorset mainly and on Salisbury Plain, down to Weymouth where part of the Mulberry Harbour was being built. Across to the Isle of Wight - that was work on the Pluto pipeline ready for D Day but we didn't know that then. We collected Intelligence men from London at Winchester station and took them along the coast to Weymouth mainly. Very often I used to go to Wilton House and while he was in at a meeting I dare not get out of the car. I also remember when I went to Studland where men were laying mines in the bay. I was desperate for a wee. I thought I was in an area of woodland but later learnt that there was camouflage and some of the dummy trees had bodies inside! That side of things was a problem for a woman in security areas. As D Day approached our driving became less. I remember many boats along the Solent then and one day the drone of planes towing gliders flying quite low that flew over the camp.
On my so called day off I used to drive a very handsome staff sergeant to Bournemouth. He was in charge of finance for the whole camp. He used to call at houses where army personnel lodged to pay for accomodation, then on to Bournemouth to collect maybe cleaning etc and we always went to Bobby's for refreshments, then walk along the cliff top piled high with barbed wire before returning to Salisbury. I fell hook, line and sinker for him. We were married on 12 August 1944 at the Enderby Congregational Church. Somehow my mother provided lunch which was hard on rations at that time. My family was teatotal and a non smoking one yet I always remember the dishes of scented cigarettes my father provided! We had special permission to travel to Matlock for a few days and as we waited on the platfor loads of soldiers passed by with the announcement being made that the train was not for the use of the public - however we made it.
Before D Day I drove Lady Pamela Digby. Only myself and one other were allowed to drive her as we dove FAST [ Winston Churchill's daughter] There were more tanks on the road around Dorset than cars. It was a very happy time and I kept in touch with Lady Pamela until her death in a home in Dorchester.
Margaret has a newspaper cuttings about Wilton House's crucial D Day role that reads
"The planning for Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944, took place at Wilton House . . . Wilton House was requisitioned as the headquarters of Southern Command in June 1940. The 15th Earl and Countess of Pembroke remained in residence while the top secret planning for D Day was co-ordinated in the famous Double Cube Room. . . . During the planning stages of the operation the house was visited by Churchill, Eisenhower, General de Gaulle and King George V. However it was all top secret so little evidence remains" Debbie Evans, the Tourism Manager at Wilton House added.
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England
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Margaret Aldridge
was born in 1924 and lived in the village of Enderby, Leicestershire, five miles south west of Leicester city and now pincered by the M1 and M69. Margaret recalls the village was dominated by the granite quarry and the shoe and hosiery factories.
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1940 - 1945
Kathleen goes back to the evacuees reunion regularly and has kept in touch with many of her wartime friends.
"We started off going to Suffolk with an Aunt and Uncle from South East London. Three months later my Aunt fell down stairs. She tripped over the cat and we returned home and in 1940 were evacuated to Seavington St Michael in Somerset with my school. I was evacuated with my brother. We all arrived by train and gathered at the Horlicks factory at Chard and were simply tipped out there. I remember being given milk and iced buns which I thought was wonderful. Then we were bussed out to the villages. We didn't want to be separated and when my father was called up Mother came too. She worked in the local hostel where those evacuee children with problems who could not be billeted out with families used to have to live. I didn't find the country frightening because we used to spend our holidays in Suffolk.. I loved it. Mother had been a country girl from Suffolk who went into service and that was how she met my father, a Londoner.
In the early days of the war we had an Anderson shelter in the garden which we shared as they took 10. Our ARP warden gave a warning for gas. My friend's sister had just put her hair rollers in and couldn't get her gas mask on! Her father said "you aren't going to do that again for the rest of the war!"
In Somerset we went to the village school and after a year we moved to Donyatt. We evacuees were in the village hall. I then went to night school and learnt shorthand. I went to Dowlish Wake [a village close by] at 15 as a junior shorthand typist for the shipping department of Standard Telephones and Cables who were then making munitions. I was confirmed at St Mary's Church in Ilminster and had a very happy time there. I didn't want to go back home. I joined the choir, the Youth Club and went to dances and we had barn dances too. I walked from Donyatt to Ilminster regularly as they had a Picture Palace there. Rationing was not a problem although there weren't any sweets. Occasionally a shop in Ilminster got gelatine sweets and I used to rush to get my 2oz ration! We had plenty of eggs, cream, bread and jam and used to top up at breakfast for the day ahead. There were several smallholdings close by so we got chicken and eggs - plenty of eggs. I remember clothing coupons and we used to plan out how we were going to use them. I don't remember any particular shortages. I do remember all of us evacuees were provided with wellingtons.
Trains were blacked out. I remember travelling from Taunton to Ilminster - there were no lights on the station. We had to guess where we were as they took the station name boards down too. We came from Taunton to Chard and got off at Donyatt Halt. They had war time pillboxes there and close by was the airfield, Merryfield. I remember the Americans used to fly their wounded in to Merryfield and I used to see convoys of Red Cross collecting them. I liked the convoys - the soldiers used to throw out nylon stockings and sweets!"
Somerset
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Kath Pettigrew
Kath Pettigrew partners Val Cookson, who founded the Dollywood Dancers [named after her mother Dolly Wood], entertaining at the launch of the Make do and Mend Project Wartime Garden Party and were interviewed in February 2010 at a Memories Tea Party.
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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
Mrs Leadbeater recalls
"When war broke out in 1939 my parents had a daughter of 18 who served in the Land Army and then the ATS, a son of 16 who went into the army at 18 and a son of 14 who eventually served in the Royal Marines and was badly wounded. In addition there were two daughters at school and two sons and a daughter at home under school age. They lived in a suburb of Birmingham. My father, weakened by as etc. in the Great War, by himself dug a deep home and sited our air raid shelter in it - as near as he could get to a 1914-18 dug-out. When the sirens went Dad and Mum had to carry baby and toddlers down to the air-raid shelter, older children helping as best they could. In spite of air-raids my father cycled to work next day and mother washed, cooked, cleaned, took children to school and tried to keep her family cheerful. She never had enough to eat and always she remembered her service in Belgium and France during the First World War. She knew what the Germans were capable of and this dread haunted her - fearing for her children and what would happen to them. She did not fear for herself - she was as brave as a lion but this anxiety took its toll and she had many illnesses later on and died at 70. There must have been many mothers like mine, feeding families on very little, worrying day and night and never knowing what was happening to the older children in the battlefield of Iltaly and at sea and a daughter away from home and concerned for younger siblings and not able to help the family. These women have never received the recognition they deserved. I would like to salute them all."
Birmingham
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Noel Leadbeater
Grew up in a suburb of Birmingham and is now a resident of St Johns Almshouse, Sherborne.
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1939 - 1945
"I remember the Sherborne Bombing Raid. I was going out to the hairdressers, Ruth Foster's Mum. I was passing Mrs Grant's house and she called "You had better come in. The barrage balloons have just gone up Yeovil way." I didn't see the damage done in Sherborne. We heard the planes and the bombs but we couldn't get about in wartime so I didn't get to Sherborne ( five miles away) very often. I always remember the start of the war. My Mum was killed on the 24th of August 1939 at the Cross Roads. She had been worried about the coming war and said she didn't want to see her boys go to war. I remember her arm was broken and she had other injuries and later that night my sister Linda came and said Mummy's dead. Mrs Gervis was a nurse, the schoolmaster's wife, and she had come to help. We used to wear black for six months. I remember Gran made us girls black and white check dresses - for four of us.
At Yetminster we had an air raid siren at Brister End up by the quarry. Quite a few men from the village used to man it - Dr Stevens was one of them and a man from Ryme came to help.
I remember looking forward to going to Sherborne by charabanc every year to Phillips and Andover in Sherborne but it was bombed. We used to pay into a clothing club at the Vicarage - a shilling a week [5p] and at the end of the year we used to enjoy the ride in the charabanc with the roof down if the weather was fine and spending the club money at the store.
I remember Harry Saunders was Sexton at Yetminster. He lived in the thatched Sexton's cottage next to the church - it isn't thatched now. His job was to light the lamps in the church and each night he used to go into the church to ring the Curfew Bell. I worked for Dr. Stevens - in service. Mrs Stevens had a canteen in the garage for soldiers. There were lots billeted in Yetminster and it was my job to fry the soldiers breakfasts. Miss Buckler helped and Miss Trubridge - but she was killed at Hendford, Yeovil when her mackintosh got caught in the wheel of her bicycle. Nearly every house in the village had someone. Aunt Kath had an evacuee - a girl and then later another girl. She had such pretty hair she was such a pretty little thing. When the evacuees came they didn't have anything. A lot of them were so poor. We tried to get them things. At our school - we had a boys school at Boyles and a girls school - it was difficult to fit them all in.
I remember Ration Books. Mrs Stevens kept all of my food coupons as I was in service there and provided the food. I just had my sweets coupons and clothing coupons. There was a lot of jiggery pokkery going on. They were in with some of these high up people and they didn't go short of anything! We used to see it going on.
Ourselves we made do. We knew we couldn't have it and we didn't have the money to buy things either. If you wanted a bigger garment it was more coupons you had to use. I didn't need much clothes. I was in service so I had my uniform. I had my dress and apron and cap - stiff white cuffs and starched cap. Mrs Gould did all of the house washing and Mrs Dean was the Parlour Maid - she was very smart. Lyn my sister was cook. I was allowed out once a week and then had to be in by 10pm.
Washing day used to go on all day. We used to have to make a bowl of starch and then there were little bags of blue. We used to buy little squares of blue for about two pence (2d). Wash days started in the morning and was still going on at night. At home we all had a stool each that Mr Hillier the wheelwright made and at the end of washing day all the stools were scrubbed and the brushes and handles.
When someone died we always kept a light burning in the bedroom all night with the body. I'm not sure why but it was something everybody did because we kept the dead bodies at home those days. I remember Mr Hillier made my Dad's coffin and carried it from Brister End down across Vecklands on his shoulder to our house. Dad had been ill from January until May. We didn't have any electric and lit a fire upstairs in the grate to keep him warm.
Meat - well I know the Stevens got it on the Blackmarket. I used to stay with the Loveless family in Yeovil sometimes. They had soldiers billeted with them and they used to bring them chickens, towels and blankets!
I remember working for a mr Zimner too. When he had to go to London occasionally I used to have to post big parcels for Mrs Zimner to her daughter in London. I don't know what was in them but I remember they used to cost 2 shillings and 6 pence to post.
My brother Norman was in the Home Guard. He used to be up all night and then have to go to work all day.
I was born in Mill Lane, Yetminster and lived there for 82 years. Dad's people came from Scotland but my Mum never saw them. Dad was in the navy and was posted to Portland. My Mum had relations in Portland and used to go and stay sometimes and that was how they met. There was never enough money for her to go to Scotland to meet them. Dad used to be away in the navy for three years at a time.
When my brother Norman worked for Willis's in Sherborne he used to ask me if I wanted a lift into Sherborne and I used to have a ride on the cart - sitting on the board across the cart. He used to drop me in Westbury , Sherborne anbd I used to go up to Carters the butchers. They used to sell a big bag of bacon bits for 6d. It all made a difference as we only had £2 in wages coming in and then you had to pay rent and everything.
In service I used to get £20 a year and I used to have to pay a shilling a week stamp."
Yetminster, Dorset
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Cis Bell
at 97 is amazingly active and with an excellent memory.
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1939 - 1945
""When I was first married I lived in the New Forest. I remember the bombing raids on Southampton. We didn't have a shelter so we hid under the kitchen table. I remember the blast and shock waves when our road was hit."
Nancy also recalled her family life and the worries, separations and the wonderful Gurkhas.
In her own words:
"Most of us who are still surviving have experienced the sadness of the Second World War, especially the ones on active service and the families left behind. My husband and I were so happy and blessed with our dear little daughter that we never realised we would ever be parted. As a young man he was eventually called up to do duty and training in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. We so enjoyed having him home on leave. Sadly the dreadful day came when the Regiment had to do service Overseas. I did not have any idea where he had gone for a long time. He was in the 14th Army against the Japanese. What the troops suffered in the jungle was sheer hell. His Regiment was with the wonderful Gurkhas. It was some years before I saw my husband again and my daughter was between six and seven years old and had to get used to a Daddy she did not know. Thankfully he came back to us but I am sure it affected him but he never complained or talked of the horrors of that time. We were the same age but I have survived for some time so I am sure he suffered and it affected his life. Like hundreds of families we all had our trials and upsets and it was far from easy but thankfully he came through.""
Hampshire
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Nancy Pidgley
In 2008 Nancy was a keen supporter of the Gurkha cause and wrote to Joanna Lumley and was delighted to receive a personal reply which she treasures. She lent both her letter and the reply to Sherborne Museum to complement the touring Dance Nepal exhibition which the museum hosted for two months in 2009.
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1939 - 1945
"I remember our Anderson shelter - it was on wooden planks on the floor with two bunk beds on either side. In the early days I slept behind my parents leather settee. If the ceiling fell we would have some protection from the beams.
I remember the 7th September 1940. It was my mother's birthday - a Saturday. Father was on Home Guard duty. I was woken up at 8 or 9pm and taken to the front door. I remember looking at a huge inverted ' sunset' - except it was in the south-east! The city was burning.
I remember sherbet fountains before the war - but they vanished completely and only came back in the 1950s. There was no ice cream during the war. I remember it came in large blocks in the late 1940s - it was pink and I was sick!
Occasionally we had oranges, no bananas and no pineapple - although you could get tinned pineapple towards the end of the war. I was surprised when I saw my first pineapple. It was identical in appearance to hand grenades! We had spent ones around. My father told the story of how you pulled the pin out and then threw them but occasionally they hit the top of the trench and fell back in. The Sergeant used to pick them up and throw them out again.
I remember kids queuing up to be evacuated. Mother decided at the last minute she couldn't go through with it. My teac her got in touch with my mother and offered us her house in North West London. My parents moved in and looked after it. We were 12 miles outside the city. My father worked in the city of London and travelled by tube when it was running. I remember the mesh on the tube windows - ? bakelite? - and the little slits on the tubes - a thin letterbox to see where you were. We used to take a bucket out searching for shrapnel. We also searched for rarer items. I remember Incendiary bombs - like a pipe and silvery with fins of a charcoal colour. I remember a long bomb with fins one end - sometimes whole or in pieces and also detonators - shiny mushrooms with a pointed head, the plunger - also tracer bullets - a brass cartridge part and parts of large shells. Father was in the Home Guard and went fire watching on the roof of the Bank of London. When we lived in Hornchurch, 12 miles into Essex, there was an aerodrome a mile away - the Hornchurch sector for the Thames and Thames Estuary."
Stoke Newington in East London
1939 - 1945
"We lived in a semi-detached house in Sheffield. I was two. I remember hearing Great-Grandfather had been a table knife grinder. I remember the noise of the bombers coming over Sheffield. Our shelter was underneath in the cellar. We had metal beds in it and I was in the underneath one. Neighbouts used to come in and share our shelter with us. They made it exciting - not frightening.
I was a long awaited child. My father worked in the steel works. I had wanted a teddy bear and one night be went into Sheffield's large department store called Atkinsons and came home with this teddy in his siren suit. Stores stayed open longer in those days so he was able to go in and buy it on his way home from work. He just got there in time. That night the store was bombed and raised to the ground. Teddy was the last toy sold there. He will be 70 on 12th December.!
I remember when the whole of Sheffield was bombed one night. 17 restaurants were hit in one night. Next day Dad returned from work and had see firement outside of a pork butchers frying bacon!
I remember spam - it was quite nice actually. It was one of those pseodo meats devised for the war I believe. I also remember corn beef and snoeck.
There was a prisoner of war camp on the Moors in the south part of Sheffield. There was a big prisoner of war camp there. I saw the officers with their long coats and peaked caps and their guards. One day one took a detour up our road! Mum ran up and fetched us in saying 'That's a bad man'."
Sheffield
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Brenda Spencer
Brenda joined our Memories Tea Party at Sherborne Museum and brought her very special teddy bear to show everyone.
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1939 - 1945
"I was born in Sherborne but my father took the farm at Henstridge that is now the aerodrome. I went to school in Henstridge. I was a cow boy. I had to milk by hand ten cows before school and ten cows afterwards. During the war we had to get cards to exempt us from school. It was child labour really. I was 9 - 10 years old. I became a full time tractor driver at about 11 or 12. We were allocated with a plough and so many acres to plough up. I remember Mr Louch of Henstridge came round and told us how much land had to be ploughed. I remember the farmer over the road had an incendiary bomb land in his hay rick and was killed when he went to move it.
Then the Fleet Air Arm came and my father was given just six weeks notice to move out. Our farm was to become an aerodrome. While we were at Henstridge I remember the evacuees came from London and Southampton. A lorry went over the parapet of the bridge one day and landed on a troop train.
A cattle truck came off the railway track one night. We went out with torches to help and wondered if we would be bombed. Later on I remember two planes got stuck in the runways - they had not been made thick enough!
My father managed to find another farm to go to at Bruton so I wasn't at Henstridge when Sherborne was bombed. I heard about the raid. At Henstridge we often had bombers going over us on their way to Bristol. I remember a pinnacle at King Alfred's Tower was knocked off by a German plane. It lay on the ground for years. People below were killed and all at one farm.
At Childs Farm we had 10 - 12 in the house. - a cousin from Bristol, Grandparents and a lodger.
My brother was in the Home Guard. Father used to go up the church tower fire watching. At Henstridge we had a searchlight battery in Lancher Lane.
I was near Bruton when peace was declared. Times were hard during the war. I remember we had coloured fuel and had to have ration coupons for fuel for stationary engines, tractors and all equipment."
Sherborne, Dorset and Bruton, Somerset
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Jim Adams
was born in Sherborne, Dorset but spent the early war years at Henstridge, Somerset on the family farm.
Jim is now a resident of St Johns Almshouse close to Sherborne Abbey.
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Do you remember having to make do and mend? Please submit your experiences.