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ROSE PEARSON. LUCY VARLEY. RUBY HARTSORN
These ladies chatted as a group to Julie Holland of the Holmewood and Heath CAP team, and their memories were added to the site with their permission.

Rose Pearson remembered that every night during the war their windows had to be blacked out completely so no light could be seen at all. Blackout material was used on the inside, and then on the outside a wooden frame was made, covered with ‘brattish’ cloth, and then fixed to the outside frame. Someone came round every night to check that no light could be seen. If you caught a bus you did not know who you were sat at the side of because it was all in darkness and there were no streetlights.

Rose also shown us her identity card and said that everyone was issued with one. Ration Books were issued they had to register at a shop to receive their food. The items they received were lard, butter, and tins of dried eggs meat cheese extra cheese was given to miners.

Four bombs were dropped on the coke ovens at Holmewood Colliery. An incendiary bomb hit the post office and there were also some dropped in Hardwick Park. One dropped in Tupton killed eleven people.

Lucy Varley said she was in the A R P (Air Raid Patrol), and the depot was at Heath Primary School. The children had to be taught elsewhere. After there had been a bombing the patrol was dispatched to the site with their medical equipment to treat any injured.

She also remembered making clothes, tablecloths and pillowcases from flour sacks, blackout material or parachutes. They also used the flour sacks for pegging rugs.

They all remembered an incident at Holmewood when a plane, piloted by a local man, crashed at the bottom of Lucy’s garden. The pilot was Malcolm Parker and he was circling round and waving to people. His mother was stood at the bus stop at the Williamthorpe Hotel waving him to go away when his plane came down and killed him. Ruby Hartshorn was in the garden talking to the pilot’s auntie and watching the plane as it came down. She and her husband, Bill, ran down the garden, climbed the fence and ran to the crash site. The flames were so fierce, however, that there was nothing they could do.

Hardwick Hall was used as a base camp for Paratroops. They used to practise by going up in a balloon and jumping out. Lucy and Rose’s parents owned the chip shop in Holmewood; their sales were boosted greatly by the Para’s using their shop to get their tea. They would ask the owners if they would fry them some bread in the chip fryer as they were starving!

Lucy Varley used to go to the dances in Hardwick Park she said it was just like a village. The men used to come to Holmewood and invite the local women to the dances. Lucy remembers one night when she and some friends were picked up to go to the dance and the driver told them that he did not want to hear a peep out of them as he should not have been doing this and would have got in trouble. When they arrived at Hardwick the driver was asked by the guard on duty "who goes there?" The driver replied he was the mail van, so he was allowed through and the girls got to their dance!

Ruby, Lucy and Rose were all watching a George Formby film in the Holmewood Picture Palace when a bomb was dropped on the Coke Ovens at the colliery immediately behind the picture house. Ruby and her husband were upstairs in the picture house and she remembers being absolutely terrified for her sister who was downstairs as the whole building shook and the air was full of clouds of dust. No one was badly injured and they found her sister on the way out. Once outside she discovered that her mother was outside on the road when the bomb hit. She remembers her mother saying that she couldn’t hold on to the railings, as they had all been taken and melted down for ammunition!

Rose recalled someone calling at every house to see how many bedrooms they had so they could take in evacuees. Rose had Italian milliner family; a lady, her daughter-in-law, a boy aged 12 and a little girl aged 18 months. Rose felt sorry for the family when they arrived as, only being married about a year she had very little furniture, and the evacuees only had canvas camp beds and blankets to keep them warm. This family did not stay with Rose for very long, but she can remember them sending her a hat! Rose had two more evacuees a woman called Mrs Snowball and her son Ronnie aged 4.

When war broke out Ruby was in Walton Sanatorium. She, and many other patients who were well enough, were sent home as it was going to be used as a Military Hospital but this fell through.

Fewer men from this area went to war as they worked down the mines and it also depended on their age and fitness as to whether they went or not. Rose said they also had to sign on to help in the munitions factory, which was in Chesterfield; Lucy was exempt because she worked in food. The air raid shelters were in the middle of the streets, but some people had their own at the bottom of their gardens. Other than that Rose said that you went in the pantry under the bench. Gas masked were issued to everyone even babies.

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