大象传媒

鈥淭his story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Anita Howard from Essex CSV Action Desk on behalf of Ceryl Joe Crabb and has been added to the site with his permission. Ceryl Joe Crabb fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

My mother died after the birth of my sister Betty when I was 3 years old.. Betty was then put in a home at Coopersdale. .I continued tolive with my father who looked after me until he died in 1939 when I was 9 years old. He worked at a farm called Pegrams. At 4.00a.m.he would milk the cows, cleanup after them, prepare breakfast for us, then return to work.
Depending on the time of the year he would hoe sugar beet, cut hedges, get in the harvest, cut grass for hay for the horses and cows, thatch stacks and help with corn threshing in the stack yards. This I enjoyed, chasing rats and mice from the stacks.
H e went back to work until 3 pm. to see if I was all right and then return to get in the cows for milking again. After this I would go with him to the fields to collect clover, dandelions and cow mumble for our rabbits. Then he would feed the rabbits, chickens, pigeons, ferrets and greyhound; then it would be supper time for us.
After supper he went to the pub until turning out time. I would wait at our front gate for him, sometimes it would be dark when he cane home, after spending his last shilling. Young as I was I thought I would never, never drink.
In the summer time, weekends, he would take me into Epping town where he would go into the Cock Hotel for his drink. I would sit outside with a large arrowroot biscuit, sometimes with a lemonade, which had to last me for about three hours or more or until he had run out of money.
I must say he was always very kind to me, I was never hit or anything like that but I was very lonely at times. I did have a good friend
named Donald Stevens, the same age as me. We would make things like trolleys, made from (if we could get them) pram wheels, very good runners. But what I looked forward to was the weekends and holidays. Then ,with our homemade catapults, in a gang of about ten or more, we would go down to the sewer beds and shoot moorhens and pigeons and if we were lucky, a rabbit, which we took home and cooked.
Or we would go for miles over the fields, taking most of the day. We never seemed to get hungry and if we were thirsty we would drink from the streams.
After dad died in 1939 I was put in St. Margaret鈥檚 hospital until there was a vacancy in an orphanage. I was there for 6 months. The nurses used me as a dummy to practise on. At Christmas I went into Epping Forest with some soldiers to gather holly for decorating the rooms.
In the hospital, a Mr.Clark asked me if I would get him some 鈥淧assing Cloud鈥� cigarettes and a book from Epping Town which I did. When his wife came to visit him he told her that I was looking after him. She then asked the Sister why I was in hospital when I looked so well. Sister explained that I was waiting to go into an orphanage. Mrs.Clark had a talk with me then gave me a stamped addressed envelope and said, 鈥淧lease let me know where you go.鈥�
I was sent to an orphanage in Writtle run by the Essex County Council so I wrote her a short letter about life in the home.

There were 44 boys altogether and we were all allocated jobs. One job I had to do was look after two little mites of 4 and 5 years old. First thing in the morning I would get up and wash, clean my teeth, dress and make my bed. Then I would get the boys ready, send them to the playroom, make their beds and then go to the kitchen to help with the breakfast.
I had to butter 88 slices of bread, make scrambled eggs with dried egg powder (very good) or prepare shredded wheat or bacon. We had three good meals a day so no one went hungry. One or two boys didn鈥檛 finish their food so it was brought out for the next meal, only at the start, they could have the same as us after. No-one was hit or anything like that. If you did do something wrong you had to wash out 44 pairs of socks, scrub floors or do extra gardening. If you went without your dinner someone would always manage to smuggle some food from the table to you. We all looked after each other as we all seemed to be friends.

When we reached 12 years old there was a job we didn鈥檛 like. Once every five weeks, one of us had to get up at 6 o鈥檆lock to light the boiler, the kitchen range, the fire in the day room and Mr.& Mrs.Punnel鈥檚 sitting room fire We also had to take the a cup of teat 7.30am. They ran the home and we called them mum and dad.

Sundays were so different. The boys from 10 years upwards who were confirmed would go to Holy Communion at 8am then back to breakfast and help where we could. At 9.30am the younger ones would go to church Sunday School to Miss Wells鈥檚 house or to Miss Patterson鈥檚 flat (then over Candle鈥檚 barber shop). Sometimes Miss Patterson would invite us to tea or take her class to Maldon for the day. (What a treat that was).
I got to know lots of people in Writtle as I was hired out to do work for some of them, like pulling the motor mowers with a piece of rope because there was a petrol shortage. The gardener steered the mower. People always needed me for digging or weeding in the summer time.
It was different in the winter. We were sent out in a van to nearby farmers, to do potato picking for several weeks. We were paid 6d an hour which made our shilling a week look very small. But it all helped with our bank books and when I left the home I had saved a nice little nest egg. Sometimes we would play on Writtle Green or collect wood for the fire. We also collected rose hips for babies鈥� syrup and also for us, blackberries for jam and acorns for the pigs.

There were no toys and I never had one birthday or Christmas present but we were treated by the Americans at Weathersfield aerodrome. They picked us up in a lorry, gave us a wonderful meal of turkey with all the trimmings and entertained us with conjuring tricks. We were taught to sing 鈥淭he Stars and Stripes鈥�.

During the air raids when we put the young boys to bed we had to tie their clothes into a neat bundle so that when the siren went we could grab it easily and take the boys to the shelter. I went with the Punnells and their son David to look after him in the underground shelter whilst his father (an old soldier) stayed on watch outside. I was also in charge of the fuses in the air raid shelter. Nine times out of ten we had no lights because it was so damp down there. I was always renewing fuses.

At school we played other schools at many sports and seemed to be far fitter than the other children.. At break time we would get the headmaster ( Mr.Whitehead) to bowl. As he liked playing cricket it meant that most times we would get a longer break.
One play time several of us were down at the Weare Pond skitting flat pieces of slate across the water when the siren went. We all started to run up to school. I still had a piece of slate in my hand which I threw into the air. It came down on a boy鈥檚 head. .He was called Henry Cooper (not the boxer, fortunately!) I was lucky not to get into trouble as it was dealt with by the school鈥檚 First Aid man.

When we were 14 we had to leave the orphanage so the E.C.C. gave us a large trunk full of the clothes we would need for daily life. We were kitted out with boots, slippers two suits, four sets of underwear, four shirts, four pairs of socks, pullovers, overalls and handkerchiefs. Then I had to find somewhere to live. I knocked on many doors but no luck until a lady told me to go to Mrs. Smith鈥檚 in Rectory Road. My luck had turned, her two evacuees had gone back to London. I told her my story and she accepted me to live with her and her husband and daughter.

Then the home found me a job on the railway as a Trailer boy. This meant getting to work before the driver, getting the lorry warmed up and windows cleaned.. When the porters had loaded up the lorry and trailer we would couple up the lorry and trailer, cover over the goods and rope them down. We would go to Witham, leave the trailer and goods there then go on to Kelvedon and maybe to Anchor Press, Tiptree, Wilkinson鈥檚 Jam factory or Tollesbury for tarboys ( something to do with the war). We carried many goods such as poultry, pigeons, mushrooms, tobacco, furniture, tractors and sweets We also went to seed warehouses and took various lots to Chelmsford.

After being a trailer boy I became a junior porter unloading trucks in Chelmsford goods yard. These jobs lasted for 3 years and then I was taught to drive a 5 ton mobile crane in the yard, unload containers containing meat and other large consignments like large tree trunks of English timber and large plane tyres,.

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