大象传媒

This story was submitted to the Peoples War web site by Hertfordshire Libraries working in partnership with the Dacorum Heritage Trust on behalf of the author, Mr. WJ Mayling. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

WHAT I DID DURING THE 1939 鈥� 45 WAR

MYSELF AS A SCHOOL BOY

A CIVILIAN EXPERIENCE BY W.J. MAYLING
27 JAN 2005

I was eight years old when the war started, living in the hamlet of Ringshall, a mile from the village of Little Gaddesden, and about a mile from the Ashridge Monument.

At that time Ringshall consisted of a row of thirty three houses, which were built for the Ashridge estate workers, there were a few big houses dotted about on adjoining roads, there was one shop, a garage, a laundry, and the swimming pool.

There were four or five children within two or three years of my age, living in Ringshall, we all went to the C E School at Little Gaddesden, there were around fifty children at the school, then when the war came, we had the evacuees, they came by the bus load, there were a lot more children than the school would hold, so there was a shift system set up, some of us went to school in the morning, and the rest went in the afternoon, some of the big houses lent rooms to the school to use as class rooms.

As the school settled down, there was a young farmers club started, we kept rabbits to start with, then pigs and chickens, we took turns to look after the animals, which involved collecting the waste food from the houses in the village, then cook it up to feed the animals. The school also had a large garden, where vegetables were grown, some went for the animal feed, and some went into the school kitchen, for our midday meal.

The eggs from the chickens were shared out between the people in the club, and at that time there was a butcher in the village, who had a slaughterhouse, so the pigs went to the butchers and when they were ready, came back to the school already cut up, and ready to share out and take home.

I remember one day while at school, a barrage balloon came over with a long wire trailing behind, it had broken loose from its moorings somewhere, as the village is about thirty miles from London, and we did not get many bombs, but saw German planes go over from time to time.

Ringshall lies at the edge of a large area of National Trust woodland, in which we played, went for walks, had picnics, just after the war started all that stopped, the army took over the woods and troops moved in, one regiment or another throughout the war, nobody was allowed in the woods, there were armed guards all round the woods, but in the evenings and at weekends we children went and helped clean the tanks and lorries that were parked at the road side, that was the nearest we could get to the woods.

Also at weekends some of us went round Ringshall and Little Gaddesden collecting waste paper for the war effort, and took it to one of the stables at 鈥淏eaney鈥� one of the big houses in the village, where it was picked up by a lorry when there was a load ready.

Beaney was also the hostel for the land army, some of the young ladies lodged with people in the village, and worked on the local farms; they also had a depot about two miles away in the village of Nettleden, where they kept the heavy equipment, tractors, etc.

In the village there was the Home Guard, and the Auxiliary Fire Service, I remember more about the Home Guard as my father was in that, he was too old to be called up for the services , he was in the 1914 -18 war. The Home Guard had their Head Quarters behind the Bridgewater Arms, they also had a rifle range in the park land at Ringshall, just below the swimming pool, the Home Guard also made concrete road blocks, which can still be seen today at the side of the roads in Little Gaddesden and Ringshall.

The Auxiliary Fire Service had a nissen hut about half way between Ringshall and Little Gaddesden, where they kept their fire pump, a trailer pump that was towed behind a car.

As far as I can remember, there were two bombers that crashed in the area. One just behind the farm at the Ashridge Monument, and American, I think, and one in the trees at the side of the road between Ringshall and Dagnall, that one was British, I think.

There was one flying bomb (V1) in the woods not far from the road to Aldbury, and a rocket (V2) beside the Dagnall/Hemel Hempstead Road, not far from Dagnall, we had a string of bombs across Ringshall/Little Gaddesden, as far as I know only one did any damage. It went through a main water pipe on the road from Ringshall to Little Gaddesden, the road was very uneven in that spot for years after.

By Frank Mayling.

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