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Our first sighting of the hutments at Weston occurred in June 1941. We were immediately struck by the corrugated roofs and creosoted timber cladding. They were of single rooms 10鈥檟12鈥� construction and because of their black appearance were soon known as the black huts . Amenities were very primitive to say the least. A bowser deposited onsite each day, as our only source of fresh water. Bundles of firewood supplied by the farmer was the only means of boiling water and our only means of cooking, unless one possessed a paraffin stove.
Latrines were wooden framed cubicles clad with corrugated sheets and a roof to match. They were re-sited from time to time making sure everything was well disinfected and limed before holes were filled to prevent decease. Most of this work was carried out by the residents themselves on a rota system which seemed to work quite well. Health Ministers reporting after seeing at first hand the conditions we were living in, said: 鈥淣o human being should be expected to live in dwellings like those鈥�. However; as we all know, saying one thing and doing practically nothing about the situation, is a complete waste of everyone鈥檚 time. To be fair, it was stated from the department that in future, the more permanent huts for Weston now going through planning, would be of brick dwellings for added winter protection and also an improved toilet scheme. This news lightened our hearts because not many if any evacuees relished the idea of returning to Portsmouth until the bombing raids had ceased.
Strangers thrown together under these conditions usually bond quickly as friends because everyone has to make the best of their lot. Occasionally enemies were made and fights mainly between women arguing over children took place. But when told it鈥檚 Hitler we should be fighting not ourselves most of the confrontations eased. A few weeks before hop picking was due air raid sirens sounded. The occupants left their huts to see what was happening. Only recognising that awful wailing sound as an air raid warning, we were not surprised when a lad shouted: 鈥淭here they are, two of them!鈥�
Two stray German Heinkel light bombers who had probably lost their way after a raid over London, came flying very low toward s us. It looked like they were using the Waterloo to Portsmouth railway line to guide them back to the coast. The railway line passed by our huts not more than a hundred yards away and was separated from the main A3 London to Portsmouth road again by no more than fifty yards. When reaching this point, the planes released one bomb each, which were probably left-overs anyway: The bombs fell quickly making us all dive to the ground instantly. There where two loud explosions but, glad to say, the German bomber鈥檚 aim wasn鈥檛 up to much and missed both the railway line and the trunk road. Both bombs exploded in the field below. The craters made excellent play areas for the children until they filled with water and then they were much more fun.
During the time spent in the huts before hop picking commenced, various organisations visited the site on a regular basis, checking on health and conditions but also to furnish families with extra clothing , bedding and small items of furniture. Mum was so pleased to be building some sort of home once more, having lost it all in the blitz. People generally were happy again. The old English fighting spirit was beginning to show through again. And so it was on the first day of hop harvesting, a small army sallied forth armed with all types of containers to put hops in, marched together as one. The weather was cold and very misty but otherwise dry underfoot. It took a while to settle in at actually picking the hops. They smelt horrible and when a vine was pulled and caught you across the head or neck it grazed the skin making it rally sore after.
Day two began in a similar fashion with the sun burning the early mist off by ten o鈥檆lock leaving a beautiful blue sky. The morning was one of laughter and enjoyment as pickers had only one thing in mind and that was to earn lots of money. They say that lightning never strikes the same place twice or people. Well that theory went out of the window that morning. At about 11.30 someone noticed dense black smoke billowing up over the line of trees between the hop garden and the field where the huts were. People began to worry it might be a fire at the huts site. Moments later their suspicions were confirmed when a youth ran through the hop garden shouting: 鈥淐ome on! The huts are on fire鈥�. Dozens of men, women and children dropped everything and ran blindly back to the fire which was no more than two hundred yards away as the crow flies. The fast runners managed to run into their huts just once or twice, no more, to retrieve what they could. But for the rest of us, it was too late. The breeze and creosoted timber created the most combustible conditions a fire could possibly require. Flames leapt fifty, sixty feet skywards mixed with thick black choking smoke. The fire was seen for miles and although the Petersfield Fire Brigade did their very best, the lack of water and the twenty odd minutes trying to get the engine and equipment close enough to the site was all the time the fire needed to spread. Like wildfire it raged right through from end to end after starting in the middle section. Onlookers were driven back up the field away from the intense heat for fear of getting singed. Nothing could be done to save the huts and in less than an hour; they were raised to the ground leaving just a large pile of ashes.
It was heartbreaking to witness another tragedy for these poor people who had very little to start with and now found themselves left with nothing, only the clothes they were standing in. Parents cried, children cried for their lost pet rabbits, cats and in two cases two small dogs all perished in the fire. Fire officer R. Powell when asked how the fire may have started replied: 鈥淚t seems a couple of young teenage girls came back to the huts to make tea for their families: The primus stove they were using got knocked over and when a mat caught fire quickly they panicked and run out鈥�. What more could happen to us now was the feeling of most.
Dignitaries came immediately to the rescue with offers of help of all kinds. Some families were transferred straightaway to spare hop pickers huts at Cowhouse, Buriton only a few miles away while others were taken back to the workhouse in Petersfield. The rest of us waited onsite with the promise of food and something liveable before nightfall. Friends of War Relief London heard about the disaster and quickly set wheels in motion by collecting tents from the midlands that same afternoon with three lorries, driving non stop until reaching the farm at Weston. They were erected and made habitable by eight o鈥檆lock that evening when volunteers from Petersfield WVS came along to cook us all an hot supper before turning in on our straw mattresses. This all took place on Friday the 19th of September 1941.
Next day, a large marquee was erected and turned into a kitchen come dining area. Hot meals could be bought at the rate of 4d for men, 3d for women and 2d for children. Even so, we were so grateful to those wonderful people for their kindness. Over the weekend, more clothes were supplied with other bits and pieces to help us through. Come Monday morning all but a few turned out to carry on picking Mr Seaward鈥檚 hops and like a true gent supplied the families with milk and extra firewood to keep themselves warm as the chilly autumn evenings drew in. We even had teachers come to start an open-air school where the children sat on wooden benches listening intently. The teaching began at nine o鈥檆lock until twelve thirty each day; it helped lots of mums to enjoy their hop picking without the worry of children going missing.
When into the second week under canvas, the weather changed dramatically with hurricane like storms springing up from nowhere. On the Tuesday night the wind changed with a vengeance. The families had bedded down for the night making sure guide ropes, pegs and flaps were tightly secured. Strong gusts of wind became more frequent and just before midnight our tents began to creek and rock about. We became terrified in case the tent collapsed on top of us in bed. The wind was now howling through the tall trees nearby when a huge gust tore under the skirting lifting the tent, ropes, pegs and everything else into orbit.
To add more misery to our latest predicament, the heavens opened and there we were lying in bed getting drenched. Needless to say it was another night to remember as we scrambled about in the dark trying to locate our dwellings. It took several days to dry everything out but the tents were re-pitched by farm workers the next day.
With the end of the hop harvesting insight, those families still living in the tents wondered what would become of them. Meetings were held and it was announced that Petersfield Rural Housing Council would build brick dwellings on a piece of land at Weston sanctioned by Chris Seaward, solely for the purpose of housing war evacuees. It was also said by council: 鈥淭hese dwellings would only be habitable for the duration of the of the war when they hoped families would be re-housed properly in the Petersfield area or repatriated to their place of origin.
We returned to the workhouse after our very trying three months at Weston: But would go back there to live in the newly built brick dwellings which were an improvement on the black huts previously. Unlike the original black huts with no heating, cast iron range ovens were installed in the main living room, which at least kept you warm in winter time. Over thirty families shared a communal camp overseen by an appointed warden, a Mr Harris who, with his wife and three young children had decided to flee to the countryside from London. Being a bachelor of music and holding a degree in economics, he was the very man for the job. An excellent motivator, he did wonders for the morale of all the evacuees young and old. He was provided with a more comfortable dwelling with inside bathroom and toilet but a man of his standing deserved it. For the evacuees, there was a spacious kitchen block which saw two large wooden tables for food preparation. A huge Larbutt Range wood or coal cooking stove was on hand for those with larger families to feed. Once people had cooked their meal, it would be taken back to their dwelling where it would be consumed
Shower blocks, bathrooms, a laundry and drying room combined, all served to make life that bit better large hall with a stage for plays, parties or general club nights was the best room where we shared wonderful days and evenings. But the most important building was the Medical room which saw a nurse or doctor in house every other day: The nurse lined up the children once a week and then came along spooning Malt and Honey down our throats. It was very rare to hear of any children going down with more than a cold, so I suppose malt and honey did us all a power of good. Depending on their age, children either attended Buriton Primaiy school or if eleven or over, Petersfield Senior School in St. Peters Road.
As the years came and went, we realised we must be winning the war because the amount of British and American bomber squadrons that flew over our camp in the Autumn evening of 1944 were colossal. God forbid being on the end of that lot when dispatched. Three months later, mum gave birth to Raymond her final child on December 23rd, just before Christmas. Dad had been called into the Army and was home on compassionate leave to take care of the family during this time. Luckily for us, he stayed in blighty as they say and served his time as a storeman at Banbury, Oxford and after at Prestatyn, North Wales the camp from which he was demobbed in July 1945.
When war ended, the whole community planned for our celebration street party. What a day that was from first thing in the morning to midnight. Tables stretched the whole length of the road covered in white sheets and laden with wonderful food. I don鈥檛 know where all the food came from, but it was certainly a grand feast. Children ran up and down all day carrying and waving their Union Jacks and other commonwealth flags which had been presented to them. They all felt very proud to be a Britisher that day. We made some wonderful friends and some not so good and there is still a few of them in Petersfield now.
And so, that鈥檚 about it as far as the evacuee years lasted. My family did return to a new council house on the fast growing Wymering Estate just below Portsdown Hill. However, after becoming countrified for the previous five years, all the family hated city life and so after just six short weeks in residence at Wymering we did a swop with a family in Petersfield who being very much the opposite to us couldn鈥檛 stand the green fields all around them. I visited the area in Portsmouth where we had lived just two months after the war and found no trace of the house we had left that night on January l0th 1941, in such a hurry never to return. There was no sign of it or any of the others in that street. The site was just bulldozed over with nothing more than heaps of rubble reminding passers by that folk once lived there.
The land has all been swallowed up in the re-build of a new Portsmouth around the Guildhall and north of the town station. There are however, a few old street names left in those areas if you know where to look.

Entered by Petersfield Library

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