大象传媒

I was at school, in the second year at the Girls High School when war broke out; my father had died the previous March. I clearly remember that day. I had picked some flowers, in the garden, and was taking them to the cemetery when a friend said to me 鈥淒on鈥檛 you know the war has started?鈥� so I went back into the house. But my mother said 鈥淚 don鈥檛 care what has happened, you must still take the flowers to the cemetery鈥�. There was a different attitude in those days, we were taught to do our duty first.

By then we had our Anderson shelter in the garden, and had been issued with our gas masks.

The school did a lot of work on farms. We were called in, on sports afternoons, mostly, to do such jobs as potato picking. There was a little machine that was drawn along that lifted the potatoes, but it was a very muddy job. If you complained that your clothes or shoes were getting muddy, it was a case of 鈥淲ell take your shoes off then!鈥� As I said before, there was a different attitude in those days.

For the fortnight plum picking we were let off from school. We lived in bell tents, and it was very great fun.

Also, for girls over 15, there was some extra work at Tomkinson鈥檚 carpet factory on Saturday mornings. From six o鈥檆lock in the morning we did four-hour shifts, and we got paid for it, but I do not remember how much. The work was correcting bullet casings that had been made with the hole at the end, the wrong size. I was really surprised to find that the factory had all been set up inside for war work. We had to take each of these little bullet casings, fit them into a lathe, and turn out the hole, and then test them with a gauge.

My mother had to work, of course, because not only was she a widow so she needed the money, but also everyone over eighteen had to register for work. She started as an Assistant Cook at the newly opened Borough Restaurant in Prospect Lane, Kidderminster. Local councils were encouraged by the government to set up these restaurants as a means of providing good healthy food. Very soon she became the Cook Supervisor. Nearly all the food was fresh, because there was very little food about that wasn鈥檛 fresh, apart from a few things like corned beef, or salt cod. The building was also used as the schools鈥� clinic, but the conditions were appalling. There was a corrugated iron roof, so they were hot in the summer and frozen in the winter. There were scrubbed top tables and benches down each side of the room, and the WVS ladies did the serving. Between noon and 2 pm they provided up to 400 main meals a day, consisting of meat, potato, and vegetables. The sweets were things like rice pudding or sponge pudding. The cost was 9d for a dinner, 3d for a sweet, 1d for a cup of tea. I think my mother had two Assistants to help her (I remember her first Assistant was an evacuee from Sandwich in Kent), someone to do the puddings, at a separate scrubbed top table, and perhaps two or three to prepare the vegetables and do the washing up. Many of these women were either quite old, or had young children, so the hours suited them. There was a large fridge, a mechanical potato peeler, and a large steamer for the puddings. My mother鈥檚 name was Mrs Annie (Nance) Pugh.

Youth clubs were another thing the government instigated, that councils were urged to support, and they were a very good thing. There was not much to drink, at that time; pubs would put out a sign advertising 鈥淏eer Tonight鈥� if they had some, because like everything else, drink was in short supply, and if you saw spirits, you immediately thought black market. The headmaster of Foley Park Junior School, Mr John Drake began one youth club. There was dancing, sports, lectures, and rambles in the summer. Churches had them too, and they really were very good.

Yet another governmental idea was 鈥楬olidays at home鈥�. They were held during August, in Brinton鈥檚 Park and St. Georges鈥檚 Park in Kidderminster. There were band concerts and dancing and all sorts of entertainment. I sold raffle tickets. I remember one of the park keepers was a vitriolic old Frenchman, Mr LeLoupe. If you picked a flower, or put a foot wrong, he was very fearsome when angry. But we really enjoyed ourselves when we could, because sometimes things weren鈥檛 so good. I knew someone who worked in Birmingham, where, when you went to work in the morning you didn鈥檛 know whether you would have a home to come home to at night, and when you were at home, whether you would have a job to go to in the morning. So when the opportunity came along to enjoy ourselves, we took it.

We were in the front room at my mother鈥檚 house in Birmingham Road, opposite the Convent, one Sunday afternoon, when we heard the sound of a plane. I recognised it at once as a German plane, but Mother said 鈥淣o, it can鈥檛 be, it鈥檚 Sunday afternoon鈥�. As much as to say even Hitler would not bomb us on a Sunday!

In 1943 my mother said, 鈥淗itler or no, we are going to have a holiday鈥� so with my mother and her sister Lottie, we all went to a boarding house in Weston. We got on the train at Kidderminster at 8 in the morning, and arrived in Weston at 6.30pm. We had to change trains twice, probably at Worcester and Bristol. Often the train was put into sidings, presumably to let a munitions train or something important through, though, of course, no one told us what was going on. Of course, we didn鈥檛 get a seat on the train; we had to sit on our suitcase in the corridor. I don鈥檛 know whoever got a seat on a train in wartime!

At Weston, then, there were still boys with carts who, for six pence, would take your luggage on their cart, and walk with you to your lodgings. During that walk to the boarding house the sirens went off, and there had been a big raid there a week or so before. In fact there was a ruined church just by where we were staying, so it was a bit scary, but nothing serious happened.

I left school in 1944 at the age of sixteen. I was told I could stay on at school to go to university, but as my mother was a widow I must leave school and get a job. My first job was at the Co-op in Franche Road, Kidderminster, where I was to work in the dairy laboratory under the new National Milk Testing and Advisory Scheme. This had been set up to maintain the quality and fat content of the milk. I was sent for a month鈥檚 training at Berkeley Square, Bristol. The milk came in churns, in those days, from all the local farms, some as far away as Tenbury. The churns were unloaded from lorries, and I would take samples of the milk, from each load, or sometimes each farmer鈥檚 consignment, and test them. Some had to be rejected p. d. q. The milk was tipped out of the churns into a big scales pan to be weighed as it was paid for by weight, not volume. Everything had to be sterilised after use. I had to check all the processes through the plant, as well as the end product, and also send out forms warning any farmer whose milk did not meet the standard required. Sometimes the cream had been skimmed off; 鈥淥h, the cooler must have leaked鈥� was the standard reply! But it was a very serious matter in wartime, because the public needed nutritional milk.

One farmer鈥檚 milk was getting to be very poor quality, so my manager said we had better serve him with a warning. The next batch was the same so I sent a second warning, and when his milk still did not improve, my manager said to tell the loading man to put his churns aside, to be tested before they went into the plant. Well, it was half and half, (milk and water), so the man had to be reported. Now, I had a little laboratory to one side of the bottling plant. Suddenly, I heard this big yell from one of the girls on the bottle-washing plant. I looked out and saw this farmer; he had a sporting gun. I ran into the manager鈥檚 office shouting 鈥淗e鈥檚 after me with a gun!鈥� and tried to hide under the table. The manager was holding an interview at the time, so he came out, and so did the interviewee, to tackle the man. I don鈥檛 remember what happened to him in the end, or if it was established he really intended to shoot me. But it was very hair raising at the time!

While I was at the Co-op dairy in Franche Road, I had a bicycle with a basket on the front, and I used to cycle to work. There were all these lorries of American servicemen on the roads, and sometimes, by the time I arrived, my basket was full to overflowing with gifts of chocolate and cigarettes and so on.

Blackout was strictly enforced. Every street had its warden, and if you showed a chink of light there was a five-shilling fine, and each week in the town鈥檚 local newspaper, The Shuttle, you could see who had been fined, and how much.

The Government could commandeer buildings. The New Meeting Unitarian Church, in Kidderminster Bull Ring was taken for the 大象传媒 Midland Light Orchestra, which had been evacuated from Birmingham. The windows were all bricked up, it was all very hush-hush, and I never saw inside. Their leader at the time was Ray Jenkins, who could often be seen around the town.

VE night was a wet night. We had worked that day, and we went into town that night but it was very quiet. It was not until the next night when they had rigged up a Tannoy system in the town that there was a big party, and for several nights after that.

At The Shrubbery, where the T.A. headquarters is now in Birmingham Road, there were Italian P.O.W.s housed. They worked on the farms during the day, but in the evenings they were free to come into town to enjoy themselves too. They were even allowed to work in the evenings for money.

VJ night was exciting! It was a real celebration of the fact that it really was all over at last. There were flags and bunting everywhere. I had been out with friends, celebrating, and coming back through the town about midnight we witnessed the following event. The police had a wooden pulpit in the Bull Ring, from which police officers would direct traffic. We saw a group of servicemen, maybe a sailor, two soldiers and a couple of GIs trying to set light to this police pulpit. But it would not catch fire, so they knocked it over and rolled it down Trinity Lane. The next day, we found out that it ended up in the river. It was just exuberance, not vandalism.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Joe Taylor for the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Margaret Phelan and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions

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