大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Carolyn Hendra on behalf of Harry Pilgrim, the author, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was 13 at outbreak of war and a weekly boarder at Belmont School, Wood Lane, Falmouth. First thing on Monday morning the headmaster, Major Holt, had us all digging zigzag trenches in the school gardens.

At the end of that term I moved on to Downside School, Nr. Bath. There were many air raid warnings and disturbed nights as we all went down stairs to take shelter. The following term all Dayrooms became dormitories and vice a versa. With massive sandbagging all around the ground floor we never had disturbed nights again. I was unaware of any bombs dropping near the school, despite The Abbey being a fine landmark from the air. It proved impossible to black out the Abbey Church, so it was agreed that suitably shaded lights would suffice. Sadly one of our own planes crashed onto the playing fields during a major cricket match, killing 9 of my contempories. The 50th and 60th anniversaries were marked at the school and I attended both. Sadly there were very few able to attend the last one.

I was the only pupil coming from Cornwall by GWR and always missed the school bus. Passenger trains often spent long periods in sidings to make way for more urgent military traffic. There was one other Cornish pupil of my age from Bude, but he went via the Southern Railway. At Bristol I had to take a taxi, but as petrol became ever more scarce it was impossible to find one willing to go that far, which meant taking another train to Bath. Briefly the school were denied fuel to mow the playing fields, so it was done by horses with special boots towing the gang mowers! The government soon realized the importance of maintaining school playing fields and re-instated the fuel ration. Despite strict petrol rationing, it was always made available to those who lived a distance from their church and had no other means of attending. My only real wartime privation was never having any parental visits while at boarding school, nor was I ever able to go home for half term holidays.

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