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This story was submitted to the people war Website by a volunteer from Tiverton Museum of Mid Devon Life on behalf of Muriel R Green.

MURIEL R. GREEN

The war started early for my father and in 1938 we were attending gas lectures at our local village hall. We all thought if and when war came gas would be used as the Italians had used it on the Abyssinians. My father a builder had several work sheets top store timber etc. so was asked or ordered to store tinned food and stuffs, he also became an air raid warden when war was declared. I well remember sitting on top of our staircase listening to Chamberlain saying we are now at war and the siren going off shortly afterwards. I was nursing my mother who had been very ill in a Hastings hospital but was now slowly recovering.

That first Christmas of the war I got engaged to Wilfrid a farmer living about 3 miles away and we got married in August 1940and I went to share the farmhouse with my mother-in-law who was a widow. Her husband tragically killed getting a heifer across the road when Wilfrid was still at school. This was the Battle of Britain and dog fights were going on over our heads. We had 5 days honeymoon in Brighton and on arriving home that night a bomber unloaded his H.E. (high explosives) and incendiary bombs all over the farm amongst the cows, not one was hurt. The H.E.s were 200 yards away just up the hill. If they had done off the house and buildings would have gone. The amusing thing was an elderly schoolmaster grabbed his stirrup pump and sailed forth to put out the fire bombs, little knowing what else had arrived in his garden. We collected the metal parts of the incendiary bombs and sold them on the milk round 1/- each for the Spitfire Fund. We used to sit on the farm gatge4s and watch the fighting over our heads, never thinking of the danger from canon shells. My life was now a complete change, soon we sat down on a three legged stool to learn to milk. A lot of the calves had ringworm, not uncommon in those days of mainly wood buildings. I was given Stockholm tar and a tooth brush to try and help them, cannot remember if I did but I certainly got ringworm.

I was also up early to bottle milk for the Hastings milk round. We had half pint, pint, quart bottles and waxed cartons which were sealed with a strip of metal and a small machine. Next job was to get the fire going under a big stone copper. This heated all the water for bottle washing and as the first round came back, all the bottles were washed in strong soda water and a bottle brush and rinsed in clean cold water and put upside down to drain in the heavy metal crates, no plastic crates in those days and taken back to the dairy for refilling later. There was a 3 acre orchard and orders were taken on the round for applies 1p or 2p a pound old money for the next day. Beauty of Bath was the first, followed by Worcester, Bramleys and Danes Prince Albert were the best cookers. There were various other odd trees but I do not remember the names. Eggs were also sold until they were rationed. It was a busy life and all the time we were having enemy planes going over every night. Wilfrid was by now in the L.D.V. and spent some nights at their hut not far away in case any Germans parachuted down was by now Hitler had reached the Channel and Dunkirk had happened. We were put in an exclusion zone, only 5miles from the coast and if you wanted to go out of it you had to get permission from the police. We were told to kill our Jerseys if invasion came with the 5 rounds Wilfrid was issued with his rifle. Laughable, by the time we had got the cows in and tied up in the cowshed we should have been over run.

One day my husband went off to a farm sale in Kent, picked up by the police, a summons came in due course for Cranbrook’s Court so extra petrol coupons had to be obtained and he and his mother had to take the local policeman to appear, only wish I could remember the fine!

In 1942 our elder son was born, he spent many a night wrapped in a blanket in what we thought the safest place in the old house. Manpower now became a difficult problem, it left my husband to do all the farm work and twice a day milking, so my sister-in-law took over the afternoon milk round and I did the morning round. The Hastings round had had to be sold off previously. Also on 50 acres we could not feed the cows, so started looking for somewhere larger. My mother-in-law wanted to return to Kent where she and her husband had lived near Ashford before moving to Sussex. I was much relieved when they found Elm Grove at Streat about 40 miles to the west away from Bomb Alley as the battle area was named, many planes were brought down in our area and so March 1944 we moved the farm to the middle of Sussex 2 miles from the lovely Downs, it was so peaceful, the Buzz Bombs had just started but their run our way was about 5 miles away so didn’t worry us — our only incident was one dog fight over our heads one night, my husband put his head out of the window and nearly had his nose shot off. The canon shell hitting the chestnut tree which eventually died. My mother and father stayed with us May 1945 and mother wanted to go to London to buy a winter coat, so off we went from Haywards Heath station and made our way to Kensington High Street where it was announced the War in Europe was over and so ended the war.

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