大象传媒

MY ACCOUNT OF THE WAR BY AUDREY ROBERTS

When the war started I was twelve years old. My family lived at Comyn Hill, Worth Road. My grand-parents Joseph and Annie Blackmoor had a small holding and market garden which my dad, Steve used to run for them. We had visitors during the summer months but when the war started all the rooms had to be taken with evacuees. We had three girls from Bristol school Audrey and Doris French and another girl and two boys from Dagenham High School from London, Tubby Cohen and George Smith. Another bed-sit was for Mrs Armstead and her baby son Richard, her husband had been a captain, he was killed in the war previous to coming to us. Mrs O Hara was in the other bed-sit and her young son, she was Irish but came from London.听
My mom, dad, me and my brother used to stand at the top of the hill and watch the bombs drop over the welsh coast, we could see Swansea all ablaze. The bombers would return dropping the bombs they had left. One was dropped near the North Devon Hospital and some were dropped in Braunton. A German plane came down in Chivenor, the man was taken prisoner. We were very fortunate to have plenty of food as we lived on the farm, therefore we always had fresh meat, eggs, fruit, honey, pickles chutneys, and home made bread.
Every hotel had service men and women in; The Pay Corps, A.T.S. Girls, In the Clarence Hotel there were Indians with turbans on. American soldiers slept in tents at Warcombe Farm, Woolacombe and Morthoe. They were very kind and gave the English women silk stockings, chocolates and candies. I remember them giving us lovely Beef sandwiches. The American tanks practised on the fields in their big tanks on Bowden Farm, which is were John Fowlers is now, it was hilly which served its purpose. Our Baptist Church was filled with soldiers and we kept in touch with several of them when they went home. One of my teenage friends married one of them and went to California, we lost touch over the years and when it was our Golden Wedding Anniversary in 2002, our picture was in North Devon Journal and they saw it and we started corresponding again. We had a fantastic time going to the dances at the Ilfracombe Hotel. A Man from the Pay Corps, Ernie Bacon, keeps in touch with me still now.
My husband, Don lived in Cardiff during the war, his mother Irene was an air-raid warden, they had terrible bombings in Cardiff. Blackout curtains were used to put up in the windows so no light was showing. Dons school, Canton High School was badly bombed, all the books were destroyed. Many of the children were then evacuated to Canada, Dons parents would not let him go, which turned out to be very fortunate has the large ship that carried them to Canada was blown up, there were no survivors Dons cousin was a bomber pilot, Glyn Lawrence, on his third mission over Hamburg in Germany he was shot down and killed. The family were friendly with an American soldier, he bought them loads of food and kept in touch with them over the years. Don was in the War Agricultural and he drove the War Prisoners all around the farms in Wales to pick potatoes, turnips and swede, with guards watching over them. Dons dad, John Roberts was Chief Stevedore, at Cardiff Docks, he bought sugar, tea and tinned fruit home from the boats. We met at the end of the war. I was sixteen when the war was over.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.