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This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from Radio Suffolk on behalf of Margaret Ling and has been added to the site with her permission. Margaret Ling understands the site's terms and conditions.

John, my brother, and I were on holiday with Mum staying at Dovercourt when war broke out. Dad was looking after the village shop (in Stoke by Clare). He phoned to say we had better come home as war was declared. Soldiers were billeted in the village and took over all the empty houses. The village hall was used for their meals.

The children in the youth club gathered rose hips to make syrup for babies and young children. Orange juice was also issued. We also collected acorns to feed the pigs. Every household was allowed to keep a pig in the back yard and father, the local butcher, would collect them to kill for meat. It was handy because meat was rationed as was butter, sugar, tea, cheese and all groceries. It made a lot of work for mother and father because the coupons had to be counted every week to be sent to the Food Office. They were taken out of the ration book when the customers bought their rations.

Dad was in the Home Guard and it was just like ‘Dad’s Army’! They used to meet in an empty house to fire watch and Dad would supply sausages to cook over the open fire. They had to turn out in the early hours of the morning to watch in case the enemy landed in the fields outside the village.

There was a land mine dropped outside the village and the explosion shattered Mr Bean’s shop window. It was easy for the children to help themselves to sweets on their way to school. Gas masks were issued in the council room. Len Coe and Owen Peach, the local gamekeepers, (who were in the Home Guard) fitted the masks and one lady fainted. I did not like wearing it at all but luckily we did not have to use them although we had to take them with us all the time in case a gas bomb was dropped.

The Americans arrived at Ridgewell Air Base in 1943, the year I left school at fourteen years old. It was Christmas and they brought the children candy and toys and most of the children who lived in the surrounding villages were invited to the Christmas party.

John and I were shown over a flying fortress. It stood on the edge of the base in Ashen village. The searchlights were based outside the village on the Hundon Road not far from the Stradishall Airbase. They were there to search for enemy planes. Towards the end of the war the camp was used for German prisoners of war who worked for the local farmers. Lorries would take them to the neighbouring farms to work on the land. Some of these prisoners went to church at Christmas and they gave the vicar a Nativity model which they had carved out of wood. This is still displayed in the church in Stoke by Clare every Christmas.

The Germans enjoyed swimming in the river. One day my friend, Heather, and I were sitting on the river bank and we did not realise at first that they were swimming in the nude and so did not want to come out of the river! When the penny dropped we thought we should leave and they passed us marching on the way home.

In 1990 one of the German prisoners of war came to stay at Mrs Farrow’s Bed and Breakfast, a Mr and Mrs Heinz Scheffer. Heinz had forgotten where the camp was and Mrs Farrow phoned me to ask where it had been. I met Heinz and his wife and a local historian, Douglas Brown, at the church and we had our photo taken for the local newsletter. I had a letter from Heinz at Christmas.

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