1939 - 1945
IVY MITCHELL nee PULLMAN RECALLED 17th Jan 2009
"I was born at Templecombe but was working in Sherborne at the start of the war. If I had stayed working at the boys and girls school I probably would not have been called up but I went to work at Milborne Port Glove Factory and that was when I was called up. I was sent to work in Reading for four years. First I had to fill shells, not the very big ones, and then later on I was trained to test them - that was dangerous. You had flames coming out of the machine around your legs. I was in lodgings and had a day off a fortnight. I couldn’t afford to go home more than once a month. My Uncle who was a Police Inspector at Bognor Regis used to pay for me to go to stay with him once a month.
I used to travel from Templecombe by train and changed at Basingstoke. I was in lodgings. I had three days off one Christmas and was going to travel back with my friend. We knew the train would be packed so we gathered a bunch of prickly holly. We soon cleared a space.
I was quite popular because I didn’t take sugar so my sugar ration was shared with the others. There was hardly any cake. Sometimes we managed to get some Huntley and Palmers cake - but that was under the carpet! It was lovely.
If we had relations working in food factories they used to share the extras their employers gave them. We swapped with something we could send them. Father used to shoot rabbits and we sent them up to Bristol relations. They used to send back cheese from the factory they worked in.
My friend’s brother was in the army. He sent a wooden box of fruit to me from France. We couldn’t get any. When it arrived the fruit had been stolen and all I got was the empty box!"
Reading
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Ivy Mitchell
Ivy Mitchell nee Pullman born at Templecombe (90 in November 2008) and sent to work in Reading filling shells.
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1939 - 1945
"There was hardly any food at the hospital. We used to get breakfast at 7am. It was a single piece of bread and margarine with lard on it. A cooked dinner was served at 12. It was swimming in water. That was supposed to be gravy. Tea was at 3.30pm and was a sandwich and a small bit of cake. Nothing else was served after that. When I was allowed home I did nothing but eat. I put on nearly a stone in a month!"
Dorset
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Heather Helliar
Heather Helliar moved to Yetminster while still at primary school, shortly after war broke out. Her grandparents still lived at Thornford and she recalls.
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1939 - 1945
"I went to Westminster Bridge Road Primary School. I was evacuated with my younger brother Peter who was four. I was almost six as my birthday was the 7th October. We thought it was an adventure. It was like going on holiday. Our headteacher Mrs Campbell, Mr Foster and Miss Dobson came with us. I remember we were given barley sugar sticks to suck on the journey. We all enjoyed those. We stopped at Templecombe Station [ some eight miles outside the town, although Sherborne had its own station] and had to get off the train. I don't know why it didn't steam into Sherborne. I remember it was dark. We had to get on to coaches and were transported to the Digby Hall in Digby Road. It was very late by then and we spent the night at Cmdr. Nash's house in Sandford Road [ now called Dymor]. In the morning Peter and I were collected by Win and Jim Gould and went to the home at 2 Coombe Terrace. Win was organist at St Paul's Church Coombe, a red brick building now an engineers, on the other side of the road. She also played the organ at Sandford Orcas and Poyntington and walked to those villages as they didn't have any transport of their own. I didn't enjoy having to go to church three times on Sundays. I sang in the choir. I did enjoy collecting the stamps for good attendance at the Sunday School. They were very colourful and we stuck them in our albums.
The Goulds were such nice people. We had a good home. Jim was a carpenter - the best in the street. Jim had a large garden that stretched right up from Coombe to Marston Road where he had his workshop. They had a large chicken called Henrietta who laid well and they grew most of their own food. The meal I didn't like was fried egg and mashed potato!
At home father worked on the railway, an essential job so he wasn't allowed to join the RAF. Mum and my younger brother Bill were evacuated to Exeter but they were bombed there and evacuated to Wells! Mum and Dad sent me a pair of heavy boots once. I didn't like them at all and called them 'clodhoppers' and tried to kick them and wear them out.
We were able to take part in potato picking and paid six pence an hour. We had to walk to Crackmoor on the outskirts of Milborne Port to pick up conkers. They were packed into wooden barrells and once full sold off to the Council Offices at Ludbourne Road, Sherborne and were used as pig food. We also picked rose hips which were rich in Vitamin C. When we had filled a two pound kilner jar full we could take those to the Council Offices and wer paid two pence. They were made into rose hip syrup. Mum used to send us a three pence postal order each week from London. We used to go to Woolworths. They still had sweets. We used to spend it on MIlky Ways and Golly Bars - these were toffee strips and you got four for a penny. We always managed to get treats. Sweets were not rationed then and we also had a tuck shop at school. We could also get ice cream.
Jim made a shelter under the stairs of plywood with benches round it. When the air raid sirens went off we had to hammer on the wall to Mrs Penny next door because she was deaf and couldn't hear the siren.
When it was harvest time we used to go into the fields to catch rabbits. All of the children were given a stick and we had enough to stand right around the edges of the field. As the harvest was cut the rabbits would go into the centre of the field and when the machines got closer they would run out and we would kill them. We weren't allowed to take home all the ones we caught. We had to put them all into a pool and the farmer would share them out at the end of the day.
We would also go out sticking - collecting sticks for the fire.
We used to play a lot of games. We had a darts board and we also used to do a lot of drawing. Paper was not in short supply. Jim was good artistically, being a cabinet maker. I remember painting a large picture of a parrot and it won a local competition.
The countryside seemed strange to us. We were frightened of cows at first but soon got used to them. We thought the hills around us were mountains!
I remember the only bombing raid that hit Sherborne in 1940. I was walking home from school. I remember at least one evacuee was killed in it. I remember the strong smell of gas in the air afterwards and Uncle Jim going out with his first aid kit on patrol. One night I heard a German plane low overhead. We knew it was going to crash it was so low but we boys were not allowed to get up and watch it. The men saw it in flames. It crashed in Poyntington village a few milesd away and the crew were buried in the churchyard for some time. After the war their bodies were returned to Munich.
We used to search for bits of plane and shrapnel to keep.!
We kept in touch with the Goulds for the rest of their lives."
Sherborne, Dorset
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James Whiting
James now lives at Seaton, Devon after falling in love with the countryside after being evacuated to Sherborne on the 2nd September 1939 from London.
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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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1938 - 1940
"In 1938 we were measured and fitted with gas masks during the Munich crisis. Trenches were dug for shelter from air-raids and some street shelters were built. Then the Munich Agreement was signed and we all thought we were safe from war! We bought a three bedroom house in Solihull. The war put an end to my school days. In the summer of 1940 I went to work in the staff office at Lewis's store in Bull Street, Birmingham Even during the war Lewis's held dinner dances in the restaurants. Sometimes Joe Loss provided the music. When Joe Loss wanted to see Mr O'Sullivan in a hurry he used to bring us a box of chocolates if we could give him an appointment straight away. Sweets were rationed and chocolate almost non-existant so he always did go straight in!"
Solihull
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Peggy Nash
nee Williams. Born 14th April 1925
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1938 - 1945
"The air raids were terrible. One awful night the ARP Wardens made us all leave our houses and go outside and lie in the ditch under the elm trees in the field. Shrapnel came down all around us. During the raid which went on for several hours there was also a storm of incendiary bombs. The noise was indescribable and we were so cold as it was November. Next day I walked the eight miles along the Coventry Road into the city to Lewis's. No buses could get through as so much of the Coventry Road had been blitzed. It was no wonder that the sky towards Birmingham had been so red the night before. Most of the places were still burning. When I eventually got within sight of Lewis's I found the road was barred because there was a 1000 lb unexploded bomb outside the main entrance to the store I had to turn round and walk home again. We had no gas, electricity or water. It was cut off for several days. There was one stand-pipe a quarter of a mile from the house and Mother and I took buckets there for water. Candles, when we could get them, provided light and we cooked what we could on the open fire or in the Valor oil-stove - if we had any paraffin. When we had a cousin coming we saved up three weeks of meat coupons to be able to buy a small joint. The night before was the night they bombed Coventry so badly and there was no gas, electricity or water. Father built a big fire in the grate and tied the joint up with string and suspended it from a poker in front of the fire. It took a long time to cook but it was delicious!"
Solihull
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Peggy Nash
nee Williams. Born 14th April 1925
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1939 - 1945
"At 100 Dorothy recalled
"I was the youngest of four. My father, Charles, was shepherd on the farm and when he died my oldest brother Harry took over. I remember him coming home from the First World War. I was eight when he was called up. By the time the Second World War started, Mother, Elizabeth, had a heart condition so I was exempted from war work because I had to look after her. We were lucky in the country and being on the farm we had most things that we needed. I did gloving at home. Mine were leather samples of the highest quality that were sent out to store buyers. Ours was such a small village and off of the main road so the war didn't affect us a lot. We had our garden and I made jam.""
Closworth near Yeovil
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Dorothy Loveless
Lived all her life at Closworth near Yeovil, Somerset in the cottage where she was born.
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1939 - 1945
"I was at school when war broke out but I left before I had finished my education. My first job was supposed to be in a laboratory but it turned out to be making aircraft plywood. I didn't stay long! My second job was supposed to be hush-hush but turned out to be making perspex for aircraft. I didn't like it and only stayed nine days!. Then I went to work for the Canada Life Insurance Company where I did stay a little while but I wanted to work outside so I joined the Land Army. I was sent to a big house in Buckinghamshire as Under Gardener. The old gardener had retired but his two sons who took on the garden were called up and he had to come out of retirement. We dug up the tennis courts and grew potatoes and on the other courts we kept chickens. It was there I learnt to milk because they had two cows. The chauffeur/groom took on the hedging.
We had plenty of vegetables and the cook was still there so we lived ok. I was 18 then. Clothing was rationed but that didn't worry me much as I wasn't very fashion conscious. When the groom was on holiday I had to learn to milk the cows and found I liked it. It was unusual for girls to like milking the cows so I was sent to the other end of Bucks where there was a much larger herd of 50 cows. I was there for several years as cow man. They had one of the early dairies - a milking parlour. I wasn't very mechanical really but they found I was very good at keeping the parlour running. Then I was sent to another herd where they had Shorthorns. Shortly afterwards they changed to real Jersey cows that had come from the Channel Islands. I liked those a lot. I used to make butter, cream and cheese for the house in small amounts but not for sale. I was in the Land Army for over ten years but I still haven't got my badge. I finally left to get married. We lived quite well during the war. Make do and Mend was what we were used to. Compared to the 1920s and 1930s life was actually better. During the recession there was real hardship. We had grown up used to having to use everything and waste nothing. Nothing was left over."
Sheila continued to like her animals and kept and milked her goats until recent years."
Cheshire
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Ted and Sheila Babbidge
nee Nash. Sheila's story. She is now 85 and living in Cheshire.
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1939 - 1945
"Our family had started the village stores as long ago as 1800. Mother was Olive. We kept pigs and poultry. Long before war broke out we had to fill in an agricultural return. Each holding had a number and we had to declare how many animals kept every six months. Then we got coupons for animal feed. Mr Best at Bretts at Sherborne then sent out our allocation of poultry and pig meal. Strettons of Sherborne had a mobile thresher. Arthur Cooper drove it and was accompanied by Wacker Male when they came to the village every autumn and thrashed any crops for us. We then had to declare how many sacks of corn came out of the corn ricks so that surplus was not put on the black market.
I remember when the army was stationed in Thornford for two or three years they had a cookhouse behind the old village hall with a large range in it. However they couldn't properly cook some of the rations sent to them. They had large joints of meat and there was a lot of waste. I used to help father take the large wheelbarrow up there every night to collect the swill. We put it in the big furnace in the outhouse that would hold 20 - 25 gallons and boiled it for the pigs. It smelt awful but the pigs loved it. The furnace used to be used to scald the pig carcasses after they were killed.
Mother had to fill in a return every month to declare how many people were registered with her shop during rationing. Then permits were sent out and suppliers allocated the right amount of bacon, cheese and tea. Mr Rendall in Sherborne had his tea store by the Mermaid Hotel and he used to deliver our tea in his Trojan Brooke Bond Tea Van every week or fortnight. The Trojans didn't have a self starter and they had a chain drive. Mr Rendall used to have enough time to roll and light up a cigarette while he was getting the van started. He had to pull a lever in the cab up to get it started.
Mother used to make some jam but was limited by the amount of sugar she could get as it was rationed- so was the butter, marg and lard and eggs. They used to come from King Stag. I think a few of them went on the black market!"
Thornford, Dorset
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Philip Ellwood
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1939 - 1945
Now both residents of Leigh Old Vicarage Care Home our interview ended as lunch was about to be served.
They asked what was on the menu and laughed when they were told it was gammon!
""We both came from farming families. Bet lived at Bailey Ridge, near Leigh, Dorset and I lived at Glanvilles Wootton"
Bet added " he used to cycle over to see me."
Reg continued " both farms were dairy, pigs and poultry. I had war time exemption to stay and help my father on the farm and my sister but my brother had to go in the army. We used to keep about five breeding sows [pigs]. Numbers were different then than now. Everyone had a few. Later on Bet's father put up the first pig sty, Danish type on top of Bailey Ridge. It was modelled after the Danish type. We kept Large whites, Saddlebacks and later Landrace Crosses. Black and whites were the better ones in those days. They were still natural then and they grazed the grass better. At 5 to 6 weeks they were called sucklers and we used to keep them on until they were ready. Breeds of pigs have changed. In the end we got round to keeping Landrace. Most were sold private.
Bet explained what happened to theirs " my father supplied Greehams the Butchers in Sherborne. They unsed to ring up when they wanted X numbers - usually up to five.
Reg said their used to be sold privately and to market sometimes.
"Everything was rationed - you used to have to sell the pig before you got the grub to feed them on!"
Bet agreed "you had to apply to the Ministry for the food. 5cwt. comes to mind but that might have been for the cows. You got so much a month for the piglet. We kept chicken too at home. - 100 pullets before we got married.
Reg said "everyone kept a few hens. We were alright for eggs. We weren't really short of anything in the war because we were both on farms and had everything we needed."
"when you killed a pig you salted it down - there were no freezers or anything like that. You had a lead brine bath - a large tray six feet long by four feet wide and about six inches deep for salting and you filled it with brine - mostly salt and some vinegar. We didn't have enough to drown it so you used to have to turn it and tip the brine over the meat."
Bet added "Mother made sausages and faggots and used all of the pigs head."
Reg laughed " the only thing wasted was the squeak!"
"It stayed a long time in the brine, I can't remember how long. You had to keep turning it to keep it covered."
Bet recalled "when you wanted to cook it you had to soak it overnight to get all of the salt out otherwise it would have been too salty to eat."
Reg recalled "My father used to do pigs and then send the meat up to London in baskets by train. The porters used to take it.""
Holnest, Dorset
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Betty and Reg Coffin
Reg explained.
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1939 - 1943
""I was not yet 13 when war was declared in September 1939. I remember hearing it on the radio. My chief memory is of how pleased my mother, then aged 39, was to be able to take a full time job running an elementary school at Rockford, in the parish of Ellingham, Hampshire, between Ringwood and Fordingbridge, on the edge of the New Forest. She had been trained as a teacher at Salisbury Training College but in those days and for many years to follow, right up to my own time, one had, as a woman, to make that difficult choice between marriage and a career. She had married aged 20, directly after leaving college. She had been able to do supply work as a teacher, but that was all; my father was near retirement, so it was doubly important for her to have a job. It meant that we moved out of Southbourne and I had to stay with a family in Bournemouth from Monday to Friday in term time. Although the school house we moved to had no electricity and limited bathroom facilities, I loved it and really enjoyed finding out more about the countryside, its trees and flowers etc.
Previously I had only known the countryside when on holiday or on days out - not the same as living there. We had a dog for the first time too! The house may have lacked facilities we now take for granted and sometimes, as on my first weekend back at school ,heavy rain meant it was impossible to go home as the green outside the school was flooded, as was the ford to the west of us, which had prevented some children from coming in to my mother's school. My father used the bus to go into Bournemouth where he worked at the Town Hall in the Education Department but I preferred to cycle the 15 or so miles, usually on Monday mornings (when I was let off gym) and Friday evenings, using what we had always called "the switchback road" through Matchams. The school house overlooked a wartime airfield ( now it is part of Blashford Lakes) and on more than one occasion I saw two aeroplanes (Lightnings I think they were called, they belonged to the Canadians or Americans) take off almost simultaneously and crash into each other so that the pilot was brought down in flames. They carried spare petrol, which added to the danger. On another occasion, when my mother was away, my father lent a torch to some men, dressed in uniform but without insignia, who asked the way to the anti-aircraft gun emplacement nearby. Father, always trusting, showed them the short way, but the next day the Military Police arrived and told him how spies had stolen a plane and flown it to somewhere near Salisbury!
My school, Bournemouth School for Girls, which was then in Gervis Road near the Lansdowne, had, until 1942, to share premises with the evacuated Girls' Grammar School from Southampton so one week we went to school in the mornings (8.30am until 1pm) the next in the afternoons (2pm - 5.30pm), with additional lessons, like latin, held in a nearby hall out of normal school hours. School clubs too had to make do with makeshift accommodation much of the time. If an air-raid warning came, or sometimes just for practice, we had to take shelter in the cloakrooms, half underground and adapted for the purpose with extra girders. The coast, beach and cliffs were forbidden territory during the war and I needed a pass to come into Bournemouth. Swimming lessons stopped when the army took over Stokewood Road Baths, game facilities were limited and tennis was played in King's Park. We always carried our gas marks ( and had to practice using them too).
There were talks of emergency rations, including chocolate, but we never got the opportunity of sampling them. When the evacuation of Dunkirk happened in June 1940, about 850 French soldiers were given temporary accommodation in the school for four days while we had an enforced holiday. A Guide friend and I not only collected what clothes etc we could for them ( they really wanted pants which we didn't have!) but tried out our French dictation on seemingly uncomprehending French ears. Afterwards real air raid alerts became more frequent. There were compensations as well known stars of ballet, drama and music came to Bournmemouth, as it was deemed safer than London, and our own school societies flourished despite difficulties. Our interests extended; we began to understand the Headmistress's support for the League of Nastions. We collected for charitable causes, collecting salvage, bought National Savings Stamps, learnt simple First Aid and Home Nursing. Guide Camps became Harvest Camps with camouflaged tents and the opportunity to wield a pitchfork, drive a tractor, clear river weeds and dig potatoes etc.
In Rockford my mother joined the Women's Institute and I joined in the parties and dances for various soldiers, including Canadians. We enjoyed their gifts and company.
As for rations, we accepted what came, walked the two miles to Ringwood to get "off the ration" sausages and offal, and though we grumbled when our dog stole the butter or meat, we somehow managed.
As for make-do-and-mend we were used to that anyway and Guide badges included patching and mending! I don't remember feeling we were shorter in clothing and food than usual, though when I burnt my new blazer sleeve carrying an accumulator for the radio, I was careful to hide it from my mother! My father's growing of vegetables, which he had always liked doing, really came into its own. My mother's brother was a tailor so, even when I went to university, I was given a properly tailored new two piece suit as well as two new dresses."
Dorset and Hampshire
1939 - 1945
"My first memories of the wartime era are as a schoolboy in the late 1930s becoming aware of the hushed tones of my elders on talking of the European News. I became a Corporal in the OTC (Officers Training Corps). Our equipment was still of the First World War era - no wireless and our Dispatch Riders were mounted on horseback! We wore puttees and formed fours and were only allowed to read serious newspapers - the Daily Mirror with its strip cartoon of Jane was forbidden.
At the outbreak of war I was on a three generation holiday afloat in Norfolk and, whilst keeping in touch daily with the family business in London, we decided not to navigate back to base because it seemed there was a lot of unnecessary ill informed panic in the big city, which was confirmed when we returned a fortnight later. The our panic started because we had to make blacoouts, prepare safe areas and fit shields to our vehicle headlights.
We had to support such civilian groups as the Local Defence Volunteers, the Auxiliary Fire Service and the Royal Observer Corps and observe Air Raid Precautions. We assisted with the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force. For this we had a small yacht available on the Medway but although registered with large authorised inscriptions on both sides, she was laid-up and so out of commission. Some of our staff were leaving due to Conscription and were replaced by retired members. Then day and night bombing made the journey from the suburbs to the city a challenge because of all the new diversions and the road signs had been removed, as they had nationwide for reasons of security. Phrases such as "careless talk costs lives" - "be like dad, keep mum" - "dig for victory" - "make do and mend" and "waste not want not" were often heard.
We were finally fire bombed out of London. This was the only time my father was reduced to tears when he saw our family firm of stationers and newspaper makers, established in the 18th Century, reduced to a shell. We needed special dispensation to enter the building. There was some surprising salvage in the cellars where the lack of oxygen had left the antracite unconsumed and the bonded methylated spirits still in its Winchesters had failed to explode! The safe on the ground floor was a complete melt down but our industrial textiles stored as heavy weight rolls on steel racks were found marketable after severe trimming!
As an indentured apprentice one of my jobs was to make an inventory of the building's contents to support our war damage insurance claim. Whilst our turnover and revenue in this trade were seriously reduced this was somewhat offset by diversification as a government sub-contractor working from home in engineering on behalf of the war effort.
A twelve hour day was followed by home guard fire watching and anti-looting patrols. We were now fully kitted out , including bayonets, .300 rifles and five rounds of ammo. Our training was on-going from Lewis and Vickers machine guns and eventually a Tommy gun. We also had to maintain a flame thrower kept ready at our local road block and practice throwing live hand grenades. We did have a few field telephones but mainly relied on the Morse Code and signalling with flags. On the lighter side we went recruiting with our drum and fife band. As a former ceremonial bugler from my schooldays I was reduced to clashing the cymbals!
Although I was in a reserved occupation, call up papers duly arrived from the RAF, who were short of engineers. After some four months initial training I was posted to Ayr, where we were under canvas in a bell tent on cold, wet, soggy ground in winter, followed by Chester where conditions were much better. Here we became sufficiently skilled to be able, as one of several teams, to fetch an aircraft in for a service, change a Merlin in-line or Hercules radial engine, including all the associated components and ground test all within 24 hours. For a couple of months we were working a seven day week, 12 hours a day. For some of us this was overpowering, bearing in mind the care needed in servicing an aircraft; so we volunteered as a break for guard duty - two hours on and four hours off - which was much easier.
My unrelated but subsequent posting to a salvage and repair unit was in Kent. This was a compassionate posting due to the illness of my mother, which led to my being billeted at home and travelling on a camp bike. One of my family obligations was to have a hot meal of rationed food ready for me any evening on my return from duty. However my movements were erratic, being dictated by the repair work on aircraft anywhere in Kent, which often lasted several days. On these occasions we lived mainly on hay-box meals. I had one break due to being sent to an isolation hospital with german measles.
At this time doodle bugs were constantly arriving. For shelter I once dived under a petrol bowser, which was not exactly intelligent, but there was little time to think! So in a way it was a relief to find myself being kitted out for an unknown overseas posting. In the event, after a three week tropp ship journey, including several days of horrible sea sickness, I arrived in India for a posting 300 miles south wesdt of Calcutta at a sdtaging post in the Bengal jungle. This was a complete change in life.
Boredom was the chief problem. To counter this I became mis-employed as a Motor Transport fitter/driver. This meant I had a gharrie to drive, which was a real luxury because it was relatively dust free. Never the less I had to visit a hospital in Calcutta with infected ears and impetigo. Following this I had a period of convalesence in the Himalayas with a return journey via Agra - where I missed a connection and so was able to visit the Taj Mahal. My final flink, early in 1946, was to collect, with a colleague, a radar truck from Bombay and deliver it via Delhi to Calcutta. It was a week's journey of some 1500 miles styled as a single vehicle convoy, being serviced all found by Western Oriental Gentlemen. This included their rations which consisted mainly of rice and stew which did not impress us - but the journey did. It was mainly single tarmac roads with a bullock cart dust track on either side. The bridges were not really meant for heavy vehicles. Driving over the sleepers of a railway bridge was sometimes the alternative, especially when pontoons were not up to the job. On arrival at camp I was told to pack my belongings because my discharge papers had arrived. I was flown to Bighty with three refuelling stops. What a sudden change on arrival after the tropics to find a very cold English winter. Thus ended my war.
In retrospect the wartime experiences, whilst at times severely harsh and tiring, hastened my preparation towards becoming a self-sufficient person as already started by school discipline and the ethos of the Boy Scouts. Certainly there were a few lighter moments and perks when in uniform. On off duty times in the UK we could visit cinemas, dance halls and pubs; perks included postage paid letter forms, usually censored, free bus travel and an occasional furrlough or 36 hour pass; the use of service men's clubs such as TocH, Salvation Army, YMCA and WVS. One Christmas time with two others I was invited into the home of a large family of WVS girls whose boy friends were overseas - that was a very pleasant and totally unexpected surprise - which led to a pen friendship for the duration of the war.
However there was no real let up from the mental pressures of the times - the blackouts and bombing.
On returning to civvy street I was able to join a tennis club and swimming club."
Norfolk and International
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Denzil Goddard
a resident of Leigh Old Vicarage wanted to record his wartime memories.
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1937 - 1945
"I worked at Harper House, a boarding house for Sherborne School, as a sewing maid with Mr Tindall as House Master. In the 1920s he asked me to join him as House Matron at West Downs Preparatory School, Winchester, the Preparatory School for Winchester College, where he had just been appointed Head Master.
Two of my friends went with him too. West Downs was a lovely school and I enjoyed my work there. I used to come home during the holidays or sometimes went on holiday with the Tindalls to the Isle of Wight or Newquay.
When the war came we were worried about the boys.
Some of my favourite Old Boys were Peter Scott who as a boy used to come and ask.
"May can I borrow your watch?" He was always drawing as a young boy but didn't have a watch. He used to draw wildlife in the grounds during his lunch hour. We also had Angus Ogilvy and his brother. Their parents gave me a clock for looking after them so well!
Southampton was bombed and we always had bombers flying overhead. Some of the parents were worried too so Mr Tindall started looking for a safe place to move the school to. We took over Glenapp Castle in Ayrshire in South West Scotland and soon the boys started arriving. All went well at first. Their parents managed to send supplies of most things they needed and there was always something for us too. Then things changed. We found we were on the flight path for Ireland and Mr Tindall started to get worried again.
I went home for the summer holidays. It was a long train journey. I used to have a break in London and go and stay with Aunt Louisa and Uncle Zeb at Finsbury Park. Uncle Zeb was an Austrian Pastry Cook but he was interred in the Alexandra Palace in the First World War in case he was a spy! Aunt used to be allowed to visit him on Sundays. After the war they changed their name back to her maiden name, from Reinthler to Hunt, in case the same thing happened again!
I was crossing Waterloo Bridge one afternoon when there was an air raid and had to go to the nearest shelter. Some time afterwards Uncle Zeb's house was bombed and most of their road. They were re-housed close by. On my way back to Scotland Mother, Louisa's older sister, used to send up a few supplies from the country -eggs, fruit and jam- and I used to drop them off.
When we got back to Scotland we had a shock. The army had taken over Glenapp castle and with less than 48 hours before the boys were due back we had to start searching for another home for the school.
Mr Tindall spent most of the next day with the army who tried to find somewhere for the boys. Then at the last minute we learnt Blair Castle, near Blair Atholl village, in Perthshire was being made available for us. Some of us went on to the castle while others waited to collect the boys as they arrived back and see they were sent on to Blair Atholl. There hadn't been time to tell them to go to Blair Atholl. It was a lovely place to stay. It had been an auxillary hospital in the First World War but was the family home of the Duke of Atholl. The Duke was the only person allowed to keep a private army and we often saw his Atholl Highlanders. While we were there the Duke died and we watched the Highlanders parade and pipe the coffin from the house to the church. We watched from the upper windows. The family made us very welcome and we had few shortages. The estate was large and the remaining keepers kept us well supplied with food.
The boys were very careful in the castle and I don't remember any breakages but they all came from well off homes so were used to such places.
In May 1945 I had a phonecall from Dorset to say Mother was seriously ill so I packed up and caught the first train home. She died soon after I got there and I stayed home to look after father and never returned to Scotland. At home we had rationing but we had a large garden and two allotments. My brother was a thatcher and got a special petrol allowance so he could carry on working. He often came home with something for the table. My Uncle was a keeper in Honeycombe Wood so he sometimes gave us things too. He kept pigs and built a smoke house near the house. He used oak shavings and smoked the joints and hams so we often had meat too. "
Dorset, Scotland, London
1939 - 1945
"I lived at the little hamlet of Lower Wraxall, Dorset, until I was 18 in 1945. We saw lots of action. I remember a huge air battle and aircraft coming down in flames. It was sad - they were someones sons weren't they?. We were milking cows at the time. We saw men coming out in parachutes. We had a lot of troops in the village and military police after Dunkirk. They went off on their motorbikes to look for the men. I worked with my father on his farm when I left school.
Then I went to Leigh in 1945 when I was 18, milking. That's why I have bad hands. We had to milk 60 cows by hand!
Troops used to live in an old cottage. They used to sing "I fell in love with Mary at the dairy" when we walked by.
We had a huge vegetable garden and got plenty of food that way. I was about 13 or 14 when the war started. We didn't really understand. We thought it was good fun really.
We didn't have evacuees but we did at the village school at Rampisham. There was a family evacuated from Weymouth. Mr Fraser had a plumbing business and he went backwards and forwards every day and there was Digby the fruit wholesalers and he did the same. I remember the troops gathering for D Day and they used to say "Careless talk costs Lives"
We had butter and loads of cheese. We had a cheesemaker and a cheese loft. When you went into the cheese room it was full off lots of truckles of cheese - mostly cheddar but sometimes Dorset Blue Vinny. I can't tell you the recipe. I never touched the stuff myself. No we weren't short really. We had pig meat and plenty of butter.
I could make butter today with a big churn. It was the good old days. You see we had all those troops in the village!"
Lower Wraxall, Dorset
1939 - 1945
"I spent a lot of the war on Salisbury Plain. I was a VAD (The Voluntary Aid Detachment was founded in 1909 with the help of the Red Cross and the Order of St. John and provided auxiliary nursing services mostly in hospitals in this country and occasionally abroad).
I worked in one of the huts. A specially made hospital had been set up there. Those coming back from the war sometimes came there but more often service men who had suffered accidents in this country. We had Despatch Riders who were injured when they came off their bikes or people who had crashed their planes or had other accidents here while serving. I worked on the wards but caught a bug that produced large abcesses under both arms and I had to be taken off the wards. I didn't have a cooking certificate so I was shifted to the canteen to cook for 100 staff. Two of us cooked 100 meals at a time. I remember a horrible thing happening to one girl. We were making scrambled egg in a double saucepan. It had boiled dry and when she tried to separate them it all blew up in her face and she was badly burned.
We had rationing. We were very short of everything. We were only allowed an ounce of butter - a very very little bit. We really didn't see any fruit because a lot of it had been imported.
My husband was serving in the navy. I remember when my son was born in a London Hospital, the day after a bombing raid. All of the windows had been blown out and they had replaced them with cellophane because they had been broken so many times. I remember seeing people going into the underground to shelter from the bombing raids.
I wanted to go on and do a dietetics course so I moved to Glasgow but then my husband came home. He had been at sea a long time. We moved to Plymouth after the worst of the boming there that had flattened the middle part. We managed to get a flat in a Doctor's house. It had been the house for the agent to Lord Morley before the war but then the Doctors took it on and they moved into part of the house and the rest became flats.
I remember my son's excitement when naval friends who had come back from the Bahamas smuggled in a few bananas and gave him one. He had never seen one before. Sometimes pilots managed to bring back a few luxuries."
Salisbury Plain
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Eleanor Clive-Powell
Interviewed and Leigh Old Vicarage Care Home
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1939 - 1945
"I was born into a farming family at Pulham, Dorset. I was a weekly border at Lord Digby's Grammar School for Girls.
The boarding house was at the bottom of the Avenue. We used to pool our coupons at the Boarding House and use them to buy blouses and gymslips. We used to share everything. We all knitted for the war effort. We had to go to a shop in the town or a stall to collect the wool if we were knitting for the forces. We knitted pullovers, socks and balaclavas. We quite enjoyed knitting for the forces. I was at the Boarding House when we had the only bombing raid of Sherborne in September 1940. We had finished school and returned to the boarding house to change out of our white blouses and gymslips and put on our casual clotes. We were changing for tea. It was about 5.30pm. The boarding house was a three storey building. Our Headteacher Miss Billinger lived next door. When the siren went we had to go down into the basement. We didn't know what was happening but we heard the noise. There was a shelter built under the shoe racks. When the All Clear went we were allowed up to the ground floor. Lots of the girls were very frightened. There was a big crack right through the walls and our Headmistress was quite badly hurt. My father was a farmer at Pulham. He was going through Sherborne to Trent when the bombing raid started on his way to see some cattle. He tried to get into the town to find out if I was alright. He didn't know at that time but he was stopped. They wanted up to wait where we were until they had recorded everybody's name, find out who was missing or injured. At last he was allowed in. There were dead and injured horses in the street and some people had been killed and a lot injured. When they had finished recording I was allowed to go home. Our first look at the town was awful. There was so much damage. A few days later the boarding pupils were billeted out around the town as our boarding house wasn't safe. Four of us were billeted with our music teacher. "
Pulham, Dorset
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Grace Fudge
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1939 - 1945
"I was in London for the whole of the war. I lived four miles away near Wandsworth Common. I was a secretary . When my boss was called up - he was too young to be exempt - I ran the whole office. The business was Douglas Pectin, a subsidiary of the Grape Nut Company. We were importers of pectin. I used to go up to London on the tube - when it was working. Sometimes I had to hitch a lift on the back of a lorry. I have sat on the back on a pile of vegetables! You just didn't think about having a day off. I was supposed to start work at 8.30 but rarely got there on time and it was often 9pm before I got home. There were pot holes and bomb craters in the roads and piles of rubble. Transport often broke down and we had to walk and sometimes when the sirens went and you were on an underground train they stopped too and you had to get off and walk between the rails to the next station!
Every night at home the bombers would come over Wandsworth Common. You could time them. Mother and Father used to go to the shelter but I used to stay with the Warden. The planes used to go over Wandsworth Common and Balham into the city - night after night after night. I used to see them bringing people out of the rubble in the morning. We all did what we could."
London
1939 - 1945
"I don't remember being very short of much during the war except my sweet ration used to disappear very quickly. Mum used to send me to the shop for a halfpenny's worth of sweets. She used to send me with a penny and always asked for the change. Our little shopkeeper was an old lady and she used to make her own sweets. I'm not sure how she got the sugar! She used to make sticky toffee drops and some others. I do remember things getting worse after the war. During the war our local baker still made his lovely bread. You used to be able to smell it baking from our house and Mum used to send me round to get our loaf that wasn't rationed. After the war for a while bread was rationed. The Utility Loaf was horrible after our lovely bread. They used to say 70% less wheat in it. I'm not sure what was in it. It was a grey colour and tasted awful. Mum managed to get some flour and made us soda bread at home."
Street, Somerset
1939 - 1945
"I was born three miles from Wimborne, Dorset, in a little village and it remained my family home until we moved to Chetnole after the war. I was at school when war broke out. Then I began my nurse's training in Surrey. We were evacuated to Yorkshire because of the danger from bombing raids and rockets. Father was destined for the bank when he had left school but the outbreak of the First World War put paid to that. He was due to embark but slipped and fell and broke his arm so he never went to France. After the First War he went into poultry farming. He never wanted to work inside again. We were lucky living in the country when the Second World War broke out and had poultry and everything we needed. I don't remember being short of anything but we were used to shortages. Things had been much worse before the war. There were real shortages and hardships during the 1930s so we were used to making do so when war broke out those shortages were nothing new to us. We didn't keep rabbits but our cat was very good at catching them and when it brought them home we used to take them away and cook them for dinner. Father was too old by then to be called up but he did go into the RPU - the Radar Prototype Unit at Creech Moor. I don't really know what he did. I don't expect we were supposed to. Times were really hard but we had learnt to cope before the war. People didn't expect as much as people do today."
Wimborne, Dorset
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Sybil Howard
Pictured taking part in the Chetnole Church Parachuting Teddy Bears, the village she has lived in for over 60 years.
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1939 - 1945
"The family had been there over 200 years. It was a mixed farm so we had everything we wanted - pork, eggs, milk, butter, cheese and vegetables. No one had served in the forces as they had reserved occupations although my father was a member of the Home Guard. They used to meet in a hut in a sand pit but there was usually nothing for them to do. I stayed with my aunt in Winchester for two years. We had a lot of troop movements leading up to D Day. I remember the troops marching on the roads too. She had American soldiers billetted with her. We used to hear our bombers going out on raids. They went overhead both at the farm and at Winchester. Sometimes we saw them coming back with vapour trails behind some of them who just made it home.
At the farm I remember hearing the empty cartridge cases raining down on the galvanised roofs of the farm buildings and the noise it made. We weren't really short of anything. We never wasted anything in any case so it was nothing new to us."
Eastleigh, near Winchester
1939 - 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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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
Bill Duggan's story touched the hearts of everyone at the Yetminster Memories Tea Party
"I was an orphan in Enfield. I was sent to St Joseph's Home. Oliver Twist was lucky! We only had jam on our slice of bread on Sundays. It was a Catholic orpahange run by the Sisters of Charity. I shall never forget it. They seemed all sweetness and kindness until they closed the doors. When the air raid sirens went we all had to rush down to the Air Raid shelter in the cellar. We had to kneel down and pray. The sisters would pray to sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph - and then an Incendiary bomb dropped in the garden of the orphanage! We used to go to school at St George's Enfield, and had to walk three miles there and three miles back. It was a Catholic school. It was nothing for us to look up and see dogfights - aircraft chasing one another - and us picking up shrapnel that had dropped.
I remember the black out. The Air Raid Warden used to come round and inspect. All the windows in the school were taped except for one that wasn't. I used to try and count all the windows and always picked out the one that wasn't. They were trying years. I remember playing in the playground when we had to rush to the shelter. There was one boy who had something wrong with a leg and he couldn't run as fast as the rest of us. He used to lie down in the playground. I saw him on his own. No one was allowed to go and help him and the Sisters didn't bother either.
I saw doodlebugs coming. There was a terrific noise and then the engine would cut out. You knew they could drop just like that when the engine stopped but sometimes they would wing on a bit further before they exploded. It was daylight and we used to see them coming. I found it horrifying even as a kid. When you heard the noise of the engine you thought you would be ok - then the noise stopped and you would think they had landed on someone else. Hundreds of planes came over. I saw hundreds of squadrons, squadrons and squadrons of planes went over. As a kid you used to look up and count them 44, 45 up to 50.
We had various benefactors at the orphanage who used to come and give the occasional party. I used to think "we're getting cake!" You had to eat fast whatever was put in front of you. There was always another kid waiting in the wings to take it off of you. You weren't alone though. There were 100 other kids. Small children were in Holy Angels, next St Michaels, older St Vincents and the oldest of us in St Josephs house. The orphanage was Sisters of Charity and the Roman Catholic school Sisters of Nazareth. They appeared so angellic but behind locked doors they weren't at all. If they pointed at you you knew you were in for a hiding. We got the ruler on the back of the hands and we had to stand with our hands on our heads. I remember looking out from the cellar at the poor boy in the playground during a raid with my hands on my head."
Bill left Enfield and was sent to an Agricultural College in Gloucester - run by brothers - the Selenians.
They had 1000s of acres of land. We kept poultry and pigs. I went as a gardener. I loved every minute off it. From the regime we were under at the orphanage it was so different. It was the first time in my life that anyone had put an arm round me. When I got there one of the brothers put his hand out and I shrank away. It had always meant someone was going to hit me. The brother said no he wanted to say welcome. We have a reunion in Gloucester.
My childhood before that was cane, strap and clout!"
Enfield, Middlesex and Gloucester
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Bill Duggan
Bill Duggan entertaining at a Make do and Mend event was interviewed at Crafty Times Memories Tea Party in February 2010. His tragic story touched so many hearts
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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
"18 months into the war at the age of 17 I volunteered for the RAF. Mother was upset when I told her. We lived on a small farm at Bembury, Thornford and had everything we needed. We were not short of anything. First of all I was sent to South Wales and then to RAF Locking and finally Bicester where I was running up aeroplane engines. I went home for the day sometimes. The train was blacked out. They used to ring a bell and had a system to let you know where you were. I often got sent back with two dozen eggs in my bag from mother. Some 18 months later they were looking for RAF servicemen to come out and become civilian workers in factories. I was called to the office one day and told it was my turn to go. I was sent to a factory making air screws [ propellers].
I remember the Sherborne air raid [30th September 1940]. I was in Yeovil that day. It was a typical Autumn day - fine but lots of low unbroken cloud. I heard the planes. I think they took fright and lost their sense of direction. I saw the bombs falling on Sherborne soon after 4pm. I went home to Thornford and had tea and then cycled into Sherborne. I had school friends there from Fosters School and I wanted to find out if they were alright. I left my bike at an Aunt's and walked into town. The streets were full of rubble and there was a strong smell of gas. There were some unexploded bombs too and bits of shrapnel all over the place. It was dark by then. I walked round and found my school friend's house in Newland, opposite the Carlton Cinema. It had been bombed but they were unhurt but they had to move out because the house wasn't safe. I was always amazed at how Sherborne sprang back. The rebuilding took quite a while - several years. It could have been much worse. I don't think the bombers knew where they were and were fleeing from our aircraft and dropped their bombs to lighten their load and get away.
Asked about the rumour that Sherborne might have had a secret factory that was their target Mr Mitchell replied "I never heard of a secret factory. I don't think Sherborne was the target for that day's mission. In the RAF I found out my boss had been the Tracker that day and he said he had been unable to muster enough aircraft to mount a proper counter-attack. There were too few serviceable aircraft available."
Thornford, Dorset
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Merlin Mitchell
was born at Thornford near Sherborne, Dorset.
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1939 - 1945
Pat Smith brought a tape recorded in 1983 of her mother Mabel Raison, nee Christopher, speaking about the Sherborne bombing raid of 30th September 1940.
"Mabel was living at North End Farm, Melbury Osmond, Dorset.
She had been taking tea to Pat's Uncle Ken, who was ploughing in a field called 'Radish' between the farm and the highest point at Princes Place, close to the now main road from Yeovil to Dorchester.
"the planes were tight together. They came over our copse and went in the direction of Yeovil - then they suddenly veered to the right. I saw black smoke rising in the distance"
Pat recalled "aluminium went for the war effort. We had to get the iron saucepans out again but we found we had nothing to go on the paraffin cooker. They were too heavy"
Pat also remembered the Italian Prisoner of War Camp close to the main road. "The camp was on the left hand side beyond the Clay Pigeon [cafe]. Until 30 years ago there was a tree close to the road that still had the base of the look out tower in it. It was quite a big camp. The Italians used to be dropped off in a lorry and we had six of them allocated to the farm. Joyce Smith [now living at Evershot] was a nurse at the camp."
"
Melbury Osmond, Dorset
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Pat Smith
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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 was born at Ivy House Farm, Oborne, Dorset, a couple of miles east of Sherborne. I started school at Newland Infants School in the town but had left before the bombing raid. Newland School had a direct hit. I went on to Abbey School at the other end of the town and had to cycle there. On 30th September 1940, a cloudy day, I had cycled home and gone indoors. The sirens had gone but they had gone before and there had never been an air raid. Then we heard the planes and ran out and saw the bombs falling on the town. The planes were heading our way. We wondered if father was alright. He was on the other side of the road hand milking our cows. We went over to find him. Shrapnel was falling. We found him sheltering behind a pile of full cattle feed sacks. When it was all over we realised our friends Elsie and Ivy Cheeseman on the other side of the road from us - same name but no relation - had not returned from Sherborne. They had cycled in earlier that afternoon. Father got into his square Morris van and went off to see if he could find them. We could see smoke rising from the town. I am not sure if he did manage to find them or not. He did see a dead brewery shire horse and found a lot of damage.
At school we had this arrangement with a lady who lived opposite but worked in Frisby's shoe shop. If the siren went while my sister and I was at school we could go over to her house and hide in her shelter in the cupboard under the stairs.
Mother made butter - I never liked it and wouldn't eat it - and used to take it into the sweet shop in Cheap Street and exchange it for sweets and stuff she sold. There was a lot of blackmarket trading going on. I remember crossing over to the stable one night to see my horse and found a man wheeling a milk churn in. I thought it was a funny time to be shifting milk around. When we closed the door he took the lid off and it was full of joints of meat! Father had some. I'm not sure what he traded for it - butter, milk and eggs I expect.
I remember the blackout and barrage balloons. There was one at the highpoint on Sigwells where there was a Home Guard battery and lookout.
I had a school friend who lived at Middle Lodge in the middle of Sherborne Castle Park. It didn't have any modern services at all. We used to have to go and draw water from the pump outside and it had oil lamps. During the war American soldiers were at the army hospital at the other end of the park and were always driving by. I used to like staying there. They used to toss us candy bars! They were a different lot to our soldiers - less orderly, very friendly but a bit sloppy compared to ours. I remember one day I was walking home to Oborne and one of the large American ambulances was driving by, pulled up and asked me if I wanted a lift. I said yes and got in. I didn't think about it.You wouldn't do that today. I probably shouldn't have done it then but it was alright.
I remember going out rabbiting. I used to go out with my first boyfriend rabbiting. We used to go under Oborne railway bridge. We used to eat a lot of rabbit during the war. We had rabbit stew and rabbit roast and if there were any leftovers mother used to cook the bones up with some lentils - it was always lentils to make a soup."
Oborne, Dorset
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Audrey Ashman
nee Cheeseman was born at Oborne, near Sherborne, Dorset
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1939 - 1945
"I was born in Wiltshire but Mother died and I went to live with an Aunt in London. My Dad lived on the Woburn Estate and I remember we went down to stay there sometimes to get a good night's sleep from the Blitz in London. He used to give us real eggs - we were used to powdered egg in London during the war. I do remember a thing called Wootton Pie but I can't remember how it was made during the war.
In London I started out having been put into a factory 'Standard Telephones and Cables' making parts for aircraft etc. One day on the radio Lord Haw Haw said they would bomb the factory - and they did. One bomb fell between our building and the wood shed and the whole of our side wall was taken out - the clock stopped at 5 to 8am and about 50 people were killed who were going upstairs to the Offices above. It was my chance to leave there as they had to find room for the day and the night shift and there was no blackout any longer on the bombed wall. I joined the NAFFI. We had our problems but on the whole it was alright. We had seven beds in a Nissan Hut and crickets in the wall! They used to wake us up at night. We had a double oven fire in the kitchen which had to be lit early each morning before anyone could have a cup of tea. The water had to be boiled there.
My other memories are of my cousin who sent us tea from India. My brother was in the navy but fortunately he came home safely. My Dad was in the Home Guard. I have so many memories - so many of my friends were killed. I used to pick up bits of shrapnel on the way home in the morning after spending all night in a public air raid shelter under the local Almshouse. I remember so many children being evacuated to the country for safety. We had two and a half pints of milk a week for the two of us at home but when I went into the NAFFI my Aunt only got half a pint every other day. I remember my Uncle was awarded the MBE but he would never say why. He had won the Military Medal in the 1914 war as well.
I remember gas masks, barrage balloons and blackout curtains. We had a table shelter. It took up nearly all of our big kitchen space! I remember our Ration Books - we had coupons or points for everything you wanted to buy.
My cousin was killed in the Berlin airlift. His brother was killed on an oil tanker. I remember being confirmed in St. Paul's Cathedral after it was bombed and having tea in a Lyon's Corner House afterwards. VE Day was also my birthday. I was in Fleet Street - you couldn't move it was so packed with people!"
London and South East
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Eileen Harris
now resides at St Johns Almshouse, Sherborne but lived at Bradford Abbas for 38 years.
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1939 - 1945
"I 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 born at Yenston near Templecombe, Somerset and now live at St Johns Almshouse, Sherborne, Dorset. I am 90 years old. During the war I was a mobile nurse. I worked in lots of different places - London way, Portsmouth, Sherborne and Yeovil. Our patients, wounded troops, came by train and transport. We had high standards in nursing then. Everything had to be done just right. I met my husband who was born in Sherborne when I was working there. I remember the evacuees arriving. My father had a mixed farm - not sure what sort of cows they were but they were brown and white."
Templecombe, Somerset
1939 - 1945
"Living on the farm we were lucky. We used to kill two or three pigs most summers for us and the men. We always had plenty of milk and rabbits - we ate rabbits three or four times a week. I remember dough boys and stir up puddings boiled in the cloth. We used to grow a ton of spuds in the garden. They used to last us nearly all year round."
Sherborne, Dorset
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Jack Dimond
Sherborne Farmer and author lives beneath the Old Castle ruins and has sold over 15,000 copies of his memoirs.
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1939 - 1945
Evacuees
"I remember the day the evacuees came. There was a convoy of about 200 buses coming down the road. It just went on and on. They were all packed with evacuees. Six stopped in Sherborne and the children were offloaded in the Church Hall. Others stopped in neigbouring villages. Some went right on down to Maiden Newton, all the villages in between and on to Dorchester and even Weymouth. Mother went down to the Church Hall and we were allotted two. We had two boys Robert and Billie. They came with their gas masks. One of them cried for over a week he was so homesick. Our evacuees stayed about 2 1/2 years. We didn't have an apple left in the orchard! They cleared them. Father didn't say anything - but they were cider apples and they still ate them! My sister still hears from one of the evacuees at Christmas."
Sherborne, Dorset
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Jack Dimond
Sherborne Farmer and author lives beneath the Old Castle ruins and has sold over 15,000 copies of his memoirs.
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1939 - 1945
"At home father had three allotments at South View - two on one side of the footpath and one on the other - so we grew everything we needed. He was renowned for his onions and he used to sell some. At home we had nails all around Back House as we called it and rabbits were hung there, paunched and all ready for cooking. Father used to work for Wyatt Paul on the farm, although he couldn't drive a tractor. Wyatt Paul owned most of the village in those days. Father was a rick thatcher for them and that was how I became interested but I became an apprentice and went on to become a Master Thatcher. Father used to go rabbiting and ferreting so we used to have rabbit three or four times a week. There were five of us children to feed. We used to have rabbit stew and roast rabbit. If we had anything else - like pork or beef - that was a real surprise. We weren't short of food in the war. I can't remember being really short of anything."
Sherborne, Dorset
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Ron Gosney
became one of the 'Grand Old Men' of the village in 2009 re-enacting the original gathering in the 1930s when the oldest residents famed for their longevity became film stars! In 2009 those Bradfordians of advancing ages were honoured at a social gathering in the village. Ron became Master Thatcher of the village.
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1939 - 1945
"I was in Central London during the war. I was nursing - in training when war broke out. I was on night duty when Great Ormond Street Hospital was bombed in the blitz. Most of the teaching hospitals had been evacuated to base hospitals in the country. None closed but bed numbers fluctuated. It was a very highly organised system evacuating patients every morning. As soon as they could be moved they were moved out to base hospitals. Green Line coaches were commandeered as convoys of ambulances. Every morning the convoys left. It was a very organised system every morning and then on the return journey patients were brought back who had recovered from operations. During the blitz it was horrendous. I remember a particular night when I was on night duty on the fifth floor. The sirens went and we wheeled the beds and cots - and remember we had very sick babies and children - out into the corridor as it was considered the safest place away from glass and arc lights. That night I shall never forget as long as I live. Crump, crump, crump we heard followed by bounces on the roof - a very large bomb had gone down the main lift shaft. All the main services were knocked out. We still wore a Victorian style uniform - long capes, gas masks on shoulder and each of us had to carry a baby wrapped in a blanket and their huge baby gas masks packed in large cardboard boxes. We had to carry everything down into the basemet lit only by a small pen torch. It was regarded as the safest place. It was a very big hospital and a tall building so an easy target. As soon as we got to the basement the water started to rise until it was a huge flood several feet deep. Everything from the kitchen was floating. I remember seeing babies bottles, a pound of sausages, childrens green ration books - they all floated by. Firemen from the ak-ak factory opposite came to rescue us. I don't know how they did it. They piggybacked us up from the basement still carrying our baby patients and all our equipment and put us down on the ground floor. We all gathered in the atrium of the hospital and assembled. Then we went out in single file across the forecourt and across the road to the Hospital for Nervous Diseases. It was like treading on an ice rink. Every bit of glass from our hospital had been blown out. It was treacherous to walk on, especially carrying so much and our precious babies. We also had our white starched bonnets - we were a sitting target. It was pitch dark and a black out. We never came out until 6am/7am and then went into the Out Patients Department and sat on the floor. We were all 18 years of age. We were given a boiled egg each for breakfast.
Wartime London was difficult, especially in September 1940 at the height of the blitz. German bombers came up the Thames in the late afternoon to bomb the East End. I remember it always smelt like burnt toast afterwards. I shall never forget it. Mother was home on the outskirts of Reading and Father was at The Front for the second time in his life as he had served in the First War.
Our patients had special dried milk and special juices because of course they did not need a meat ration so their needs were substituted. There were no oranges so rose-hip sysrup was substituted. Rationing didn't stop when the war stopped - not until 1953, the last being meat - not until after the Coronation. Food was shorter after the war, especially bread and potatoes that had not been rationed before. We had to feed the people of Europe. I started nursing six months before war broke out and I was a Senior Sister by the end of the war.
Our Nurses Uniform altered during the war to save material. Our Nurses dresses had been 12 inches above the ground and this went up to 14 inches. The dresses had taken six and a half yards of material to make! They took the straps off of our aprons and our bibs were fixed with safety pins. Caps changed in style too. Gradually our long sleeves became short sleeves. Our long full capes became short capes. The problem was getting everything starched. It was difficult to get enough starch. We had at least one clean apron a day. We had to buy our own uniform. We went to the hospital tailors to get measured. Mother said it was like starting at boarding school all over again! In our second year we were given enough material to make our uniform. We were paid £15 a year, in the second year £20 and in the third £30. It was quite expensive to go into nursing before the Health Service. If you didn't like it and left you had to pay them back. You had to supply your own safety pins too. You had to pay for breakages; six pence (6d) for a broken thermometer. It was very disciplined. We were not allowed out after 10pm. Only in recent years have women become emancipated. We were all under 21 [ 21 then being the coming of age] so Matron was responsible for all of us. It was a great responsibility."
Central London
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Mary Hatt
Mary Hatt was interviewed at the St Johns Almshouse Memories Tea Party where she has recently retired to after a lifetime career in nursing.
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1939 - 1945
"I remember the Sherborne Bombing Raid. I was going out to the hairdressers, Ruth Foster's Mum. I was passing Mrs Grant's house and she called "You had better come in. The barrage balloons have just gone up Yeovil way." I didn't see the damage done in Sherborne. We heard the planes and the bombs but we couldn't get about in wartime so I didn't get to Sherborne ( five miles away) very often. I always remember the start of the war. My Mum was killed on the 24th of August 1939 at the Cross Roads. She had been worried about the coming war and said she didn't want to see her boys go to war. I remember her arm was broken and she had other injuries and later that night my sister Linda came and said Mummy's dead. Mrs Gervis was a nurse, the schoolmaster's wife, and she had come to help. We used to wear black for six months. I remember Gran made us girls black and white check dresses - for four of us.
At Yetminster we had an air raid siren at Brister End up by the quarry. Quite a few men from the village used to man it - Dr Stevens was one of them and a man from Ryme came to help.
I remember looking forward to going to Sherborne by charabanc every year to Phillips and Andover in Sherborne but it was bombed. We used to pay into a clothing club at the Vicarage - a shilling a week [5p] and at the end of the year we used to enjoy the ride in the charabanc with the roof down if the weather was fine and spending the club money at the store.
I remember Harry Saunders was Sexton at Yetminster. He lived in the thatched Sexton's cottage next to the church - it isn't thatched now. His job was to light the lamps in the church and each night he used to go into the church to ring the Curfew Bell. I worked for Dr. Stevens - in service. Mrs Stevens had a canteen in the garage for soldiers. There were lots billeted in Yetminster and it was my job to fry the soldiers breakfasts. Miss Buckler helped and Miss Trubridge - but she was killed at Hendford, Yeovil when her mackintosh got caught in the wheel of her bicycle. Nearly every house in the village had someone. Aunt Kath had an evacuee - a girl and then later another girl. She had such pretty hair she was such a pretty little thing. When the evacuees came they didn't have anything. A lot of them were so poor. We tried to get them things. At our school - we had a boys school at Boyles and a girls school - it was difficult to fit them all in.
I remember Ration Books. Mrs Stevens kept all of my food coupons as I was in service there and provided the food. I just had my sweets coupons and clothing coupons. There was a lot of jiggery pokkery going on. They were in with some of these high up people and they didn't go short of anything! We used to see it going on.
Ourselves we made do. We knew we couldn't have it and we didn't have the money to buy things either. If you wanted a bigger garment it was more coupons you had to use. I didn't need much clothes. I was in service so I had my uniform. I had my dress and apron and cap - stiff white cuffs and starched cap. Mrs Gould did all of the house washing and Mrs Dean was the Parlour Maid - she was very smart. Lyn my sister was cook. I was allowed out once a week and then had to be in by 10pm.
Washing day used to go on all day. We used to have to make a bowl of starch and then there were little bags of blue. We used to buy little squares of blue for about two pence (2d). Wash days started in the morning and was still going on at night. At home we all had a stool each that Mr Hillier the wheelwright made and at the end of washing day all the stools were scrubbed and the brushes and handles.
When someone died we always kept a light burning in the bedroom all night with the body. I'm not sure why but it was something everybody did because we kept the dead bodies at home those days. I remember Mr Hillier made my Dad's coffin and carried it from Brister End down across Vecklands on his shoulder to our house. Dad had been ill from January until May. We didn't have any electric and lit a fire upstairs in the grate to keep him warm.
Meat - well I know the Stevens got it on the Blackmarket. I used to stay with the Loveless family in Yeovil sometimes. They had soldiers billeted with them and they used to bring them chickens, towels and blankets!
I remember working for a mr Zimner too. When he had to go to London occasionally I used to have to post big parcels for Mrs Zimner to her daughter in London. I don't know what was in them but I remember they used to cost 2 shillings and 6 pence to post.
My brother Norman was in the Home Guard. He used to be up all night and then have to go to work all day.
I was born in Mill Lane, Yetminster and lived there for 82 years. Dad's people came from Scotland but my Mum never saw them. Dad was in the navy and was posted to Portland. My Mum had relations in Portland and used to go and stay sometimes and that was how they met. There was never enough money for her to go to Scotland to meet them. Dad used to be away in the navy for three years at a time.
When my brother Norman worked for Willis's in Sherborne he used to ask me if I wanted a lift into Sherborne and I used to have a ride on the cart - sitting on the board across the cart. He used to drop me in Westbury , Sherborne anbd I used to go up to Carters the butchers. They used to sell a big bag of bacon bits for 6d. It all made a difference as we only had £2 in wages coming in and then you had to pay rent and everything.
In service I used to get £20 a year and I used to have to pay a shilling a week stamp."
Yetminster, Dorset
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Cis Bell
at 97 is amazingly active and with an excellent memory.
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1939 - 1945
""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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1939 - 1945
"I was a 17 year old pupil at Sherborne School in September 1940. On the afternoon of the bombing raid I was seated at my desk in one of the ground floor classrooms on the North side of the Courts, attending (coincidentally!) a German class given by Henry Howard-Baker, when there was a sudden distant rumble which grew rapidly louder. "I think we had better get under our desks" said he, and we did so, as the explosions erupted deafeningly and the windows fell in amid a shower of stones and grit.
The Headmaster, Alexander Ross-Wallace, was on the scene at once and we were directed to return to our boarding houses - in my case Harper House in Hound Street. There were several large craters in the Courts, and as we walked back across Cheap Street we could see considerable damage in the area of Newcombes and Coombs bakery and cafe. Apart from broken windows there was miraculously little damage to Harper House and the directive to get on with our education was followed (by candlelight). During the following days our spare time was devoted to helping local householders to clear up damage, but I don't think any of us realised quite what a mess the raid had made of the town until some days later.
The most remarkable thing was that although over three hundred bombs were dropped and there were many casualties and considerable damage in the town, both the Abbey and the School were virtually untouched. As my Housemaster was always getting stick for showing lights after blackout in one or other of the many windows in the rambling buildings, I think it was lucky that the raid was in daylight or he might have been lynched!"
Sherborne, Dorset
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Lt. Col. David Russell
of Sherborne recalled the Sherborne bombing raid.
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1939 - 1945
"Thatching was a reserved occupation but I became a member of the Home Guard. In summer it was difficult to keep going as there were lots of ricks to thatch - first the hay ricks and then the corn ricks and we were often out all night on watch with the Home Guard. It was made more difficult in the war because farmers were not allowed to build more than two ricks within 20 yards of each other because of the fire risk so instead of lots of ricks being made in rick bartons they were made in all corners of the fields and we had to take everything out to them - this used up our petrol ration too. Our spars used to come from all sorts of small copses and when a lot of land was ploughed up for the war effort so were the tracks and we couldn't get to some copses to cut the hazel. We used a lot of willow spars instead down by the river."
Thornford, Dorset
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Simon Garrett
recalled in his memoirs
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1939 - 1945
"The story of Annie Baker of Bristol, who married Bertram Brown an employee of the Bristol Aeroplane Company, has been passed to the Curator for inclusion in 'Make do and Mend'. Mrs Brown became well known across Bristol for her kindness to children who had suffered loss during the war or been bombed out of their homes. She made at least 3000 rag dolls in different styles and had each blessed by a Rector before delivering them. She continued to make dolls after the war and was awarded the OBE for her charity work. All across the country similar schemes, but usually on a much smaller scale, took place whether making knitted blankets for those bombed in the East End or items for Red Cross sale."
Bristol
1939 - 1945
"My Dad came home one night saying there was something going on at Monkton Farleigh quarry. We lived just outside of Bradford on Avon and we heard the old stone quarry had become a huge underground ammunition store. It was busy on the lead up to D Day. Some time later about 1942 time I think, Bath was bombed badly. We could see the flames. They said 500 people had been killed on two nights of bombing and hundreds of houses had to be demolished.
Lots more people have recalled special stores and ammunition caches in farm buildings, isolated barns and special factories across the West Country."
Bradford on Avon, Somerset
Do you remember having to make do and mend? Please submit your experiences.