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Wartime in West Felton, a Shropshire village

I was four at the beginning of the war. My father was Office Manager for a large milk company. This was a reserved occupation so he was not in the services, though he was not a conscientious objector. He was in the West Felton Home Guard and my mother was a housewife.

I have some memories of military presence in the area. The RAF were based at Rednal Airfield and there were white American servicemen at Queens Head, now the Golf Club. When convoys of US soldiers drove through the village they used to throw dozens of packets of chewing gum out to us children — we thought it was great! I remember a Polish serviceman coming up from Rednal Camp and asking me ‘Which way to Knockin?’ A Polish airman made my brother a lead parrot which used to swing on a stand. All the other children loved it so much that he made a load of them and took them to school. There was a German prisoner of war camp at Mile End, and prisoners of war, mostly Italians, worked in the village and on the local farms.

Our Ration Books came from the Food Office, now Bellan House by Park Gates in Oswestry. The thing I most remember about rationing was no sweets or fruit. What I hated most was powdered egg, and I remember eating Hasty Pudding at that time. At least we benefited from living in the country by having rabbits, eggs and vegetables.

We wore practical home-made clothes but had nothing different to wear for special occasions. I went to school in West Felton. Our family did not take in evacuees but there were some in our school. They came from Liverpool, Birkenhead and Wallasey. One I remember was Dorothy Blythe, and she took my lovely Silver Cross doll’s pram home with her.

We did not travel for entertainment but there were dances in the village. I was too young to go to dances but I remember seeing a sign saying two shillings and sixpence (2/6d) for entrance to a dance.

A couple of other things: I remember seeing Spitfires taking off and landing, and one plane crashing at Twyford. I saw the plane still smouldering. The other thing is the removal of all the ornamental railings from every house to be used for making guns and shells.

This story was collected by Yoland Brown and submitted to the People’s War site by Graham Brown of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Beatrice Ivy Jones and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

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