大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Barnsley Archives and Local Studies Department on behalf of Dennis Jackson and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

This is a community thing, which was in operation during the whole of World War II, with the whole country taking part.

The scheme was to re-cycle almost everything that would normally have been thrown away. We called it 鈥楽ALVAGE鈥� in those days.

You will note that there are no plastic or man-made items, they were invented after the war.

When the war started in 1939 I was 10 years old. Everyone pulled together whether children, adults, town or country dwellers.

I lived at Higham, a village 3 Miles from Barnsley in the County of Yorkshire.

Our administration area was Darton Urban District and I give you the list of salvage they (The Urban District Council) collected in the year 1943.

TONS CWTS QTRS
BOOKS 4 4 1
MIXED PAPER 47 7 3
MIXED SCRAP 4 5 2
TINS 26 16 2
BONES 1 6 2
RAGS AND SACKING 2 15 1
STRING 12 2
RUBBER 1 7 0

(In 1944 Old books and shoes were collected = 4 CWTS)

Proceeds from the 1943 salvage

TOTAL INCOME 拢439 19s 0d
TOTAL EXPENSES 拢250 10s 1d
PROFIT 拢189 8s 11d

Considering that every morsel of salvage had been collected in the previous war years it is amazing that any was still to be found.

Another thing, the population in Darton UDC was very much less than it is today.

Wartime Memories WWII

It was 1940. I was 11 years old and lived at Higham near Barnsley.

The government were urging ordinary people to produce more food so that fewer ships would be needed to import food to Britain.

The government waived some regulations enabling householders to house pigs nearer to their homes.

My Dad would have liked to keep a pig but we didn鈥檛 have a pigsty. He casually mentioned this to a neighbouring farmer, for whom he did odd jobs and the farmer said 鈥淲hat a pity, I am just going to wean a litter of pigs and there is a 鈥榬eckling鈥�, it won鈥檛 do so well if it鈥檚 kept with the stronger ones, you could have had it if you鈥檇 had a sty.鈥�

To cut a long story short my Dad came home with the tiny cuddly piglet I鈥檝e just mentioned. We named it 鈥淛erry鈥�.

We kept it in a cupboard by the side of the fire in the kitchen. The cupboard was only large enough for it to sleep in, most of the time it ran loose in the kitchen. My twin brothers aged 10 and myself thought it was hilarious to ply with it in the house.

Obviously this state of affairs could not last. From the minute the piglet arrived our first priority was to build a sty for it. The whole family who weren鈥檛 鈥榩ig sitting鈥� scrounged on abandoned demolition sites for old house bricks and timber to build a sty. We got enough bricks and timber. Now we wanted sand and cement, not an easy task in wartime. We got 鈥榮and鈥� by scraping the finest grit in the lane that the thunderstorms had left. Cement could actually be bought in single hundredweight bags, but only in Peel Street in Barnsley. That was 3 miles away and no transport or delivery service.

I being the oldest, strongest and daftest of the 3 boys mentioned, got the job of fetching the bag of cement on a wheelbarrow. I left school at 4.00 pm and walked to Barnsley with the empty barrow. Bought the cement then wheeled it home, then had my tea. This task I did 4 or 5 times, but in 2 weeks we had built a pigsty.

By the end of the 2 weeks Jerry鈥檚 antics had ceased to be amusing. He had grown so much that he filled the cupboard bottom completely. It was time for him to go. We would go into his sty and play with him whenever we could, he was now part of the family, but lived separately.

Pigs grow very quickly. By the time he was twelve weeks old he had the strength and weight to 鈥榰pend鈥� we boys. At that point the tables were turned, he only allowed us into his sty when it suited him. Maybe we had been too boisterous with him when he was tiny, I just don鈥檛 know.

We kept on feeding Jerry until he was huge. Generally speaking I think he had a better life with us than he would have had with his brothers and sisters, he never went short of food. He was always intended to be food for humans, but we all had mixed feelings when the time came.

The government made a concession to pig keepers. To encourage them to keep pigs and sell them to the government (the only buyer) the pig keepers could, with a licence from the Ministry of Food, have a pig killed for their own consumption provided they gave up some of their bacon ration coupons.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.