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This story has been submitted by Alison Tebbutt, Derby CSV Action Desk on behalf of G M Miller. The author has given her permission and fully understands the site's terms and conditions

By 1943 Four Italian Prisoners of War were working on a farm on a private estate in our village. Two were Protestant and two were Roman Catholic. The two protestant men walked down for evensong at our church on Sunday evenings and were met out by the other two.

Hymn no 545

It was six months after the war had ended that my cousin, who was a Chaplain with the Armed Forces, asked me if I’d like to go with his sister to stay with him in his Canteen for the weekend. She had been once so knew what accommodation he had. I was now twenty-one years old and travelled by train on my won for the second time.

The Chaplain of course was responsible for his Canteen, which had a Chapel at one end, which he used for Services for Counselling and his living accommodation was at the other end. It was also an open camp for German Prisoners of War. We had a nice weekend and he asked us to go out again at Easter, which was in six weeks time.

It was quite a surprise when I arrived because I met my cousin’s assistants. They were Adolf, Richard and Alfred. They were three Germans students training to be a Doctor and Solicitor and an Accountant. There was also a young chap of nineteen years who was only a boy.

My cousin asked me to take some songs and we were soon singing up-to-date songs. But these Germans along with a couple of dozen of their mates, just wanted me to play ‘Glorious things of thee are spoken’ from the Hymn Book. The tune of this is their National Anthem. They ridiculed Hitler and saluted and marched and sang and danced and leapt around the empty canteen like Morris Dancers. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves and their freedom and we ended up playing musical chains. They all were extremely polite gentlemen.

A long Way Down

Just after the war ended, a young chap and I were asked to represent Derbyshire Youth at a Youth Conference in London. It was a weekend and all expenses paid. We travelled down by train on the Friday and met up with seventy-eight other young folk. We were taken to the deep underground shelters. What an experience! It was like a large rabbit warren. The lift went down and down and down and at the bottom concrete tunnels splayed out in all directions. Three tier bunk beds were either side of each tunnel and they could be seen for as far as the eye could see, way, way out into the distance. These had been used during the war as air raid shelters. They must have held thousands and thousands of people.

Gwendolyn Hughes
Clapham South Junction London

As a family we always went to Church, so quite often our parents invited them around to our bungalow for a sing-song. We all enjoyed that, so along with a cup of tea and a bite to eat we all had a happy evening.

Deeper Thoughts

We had a new vicar in March 1939 and he started a youth club which went from strength to strength. He held an intersession service on a couple of evenings a week in the side Chapel at Church, so the boys and girls of the youth club made a rota of young people who would like to read the prayers. It was only for twenty minutes and we just had on hymn which we sang with the help of a little harmonium. There was always a congregation.

Although we always had a good attendance of village people at Church on a Sunday, there were far more people who started to come regularly-also children and teenagers to Sunday school soon after the war started.

Very Good For Your Lungs

About 1941 a Choral Group was started in the village and it really took off. In no time at all there were eighty members and it became a very well balanced choir. It gave people something different to think and talk about, instead of surmising and worrying about the war. My parents and I joined but my sister wasn’t really interested in music and singing.

We broadcast on the wireless a number of times from the village and then some of us from the ´óÏó´«Ã½ on broadsheet, Birmingham. What a strange experience. We were shown into a very large room. There were a lot of large thick mattresses hanging on the walls on curtain rails so that they could be moved about. Then the ´óÏó´«Ã½ orchestra arrived. I defiantly expected everyone to be in posh, dark suits and bow ties but they were just the opposite-except the conductor and the three soloists-they were very smart. But I must say, they all were first class musicians.

Dot Dot Dash Dash Dot

As a Girl Guide of sixteen years in 1941, I was moved up into the Air Rangers. We learnt navigation, longitude and latitude and practised lamp signalling in Morse Code with special flashing lamps.

The vicar let us use a long narrow piece of ground by the side of a high wall covered with fig trees in the Vicarage garden. We grew vegetables and sold them to our parents and friends. The money went to our funds. So that helped with the war effort. Mother had afternoon Whist Drives at our bungalow, by invitation and only five tables and they took it in turns to provide small prizes. It made a lovely social afternoon with a cup of tea and a bun.

Secrets

As young teenagers in 1942 my sister and I learnt how to darn wool socks on a wooden ‘old woman’ (wooden mushroom), and of course repair our own stockings. I took great care of my three pairs. I repaired them over and over again until there was a two and a half square piece of darning on each knee. I was very embarrassed at work if a gentleman was coming up stairs as I went down, forgetting that their mothers and wives were also going to ‘make do and mend’ evening classes at their local school.
I had some red and royal blue wooden sole shoes which cost 42/-d. Mother took me to the Gentlemen’s Shoe Department in town and bought me some youths’ round toe brown lace up shoes. They cost less and were less coupons than ladies shoes. My sister and I wore boys striped pyjamas because they also were less coupons and cost less-and she also bought us new combinations.

Gwendolyn Hughes Spondon Derby

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