大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Rob Illingworth of Kent Libraries and Archives on behalf of Len Roberts and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

The things I first recollect are, (I had a sister, younger sister,) little cases, standing at Waterloo station, getting on the train, thinking it was going to be a holiday. And I can remember going through Clapham Junction, and this is something that always sticks in my mind: When I was at school I always had to wear a cap, and as we were going through Clapham Junction we all threw our caps out the window. We all sort of felt that we were off on our own and we threw our caps out of the window. The next thing I remember, we got to a place called Halliwell Junction which is in Devon, and we were taken off the train and taken to a hall or Reception centre, me and my sister.

People were milling about, almost like a cattle market. It was like people were walking round selecting the children they wanted and a gentleman came along and he said- 鈥淗im鈥� I said 鈥淚鈥檓 not going without my sister.鈥� And he walked off. And I think there were 3 couples left in the end which was myself and my sister and 2 other couples. I remember in the end we got taken on by a gentleman who was a farmer and taken back to a farm which, (I know the name of still,) was called Killatree- and it was between Holsworthy and Pyworthy.

And that was an experience in itself going off to this farm, going straight from London on to a farm. I then found out that he really wanted a young labourer- that was me. The farmer was an elderly single gentleman who had a housekeeper. His name was Albert but everyone called him 鈥極bby and the housekeeper was called Gladys. I have been back to see Gladys since I鈥檝e lived in Tonbridge. It was unpleasant, to say the least, at the beginning but, as a child, you are very resilient and you got used to it.

My main task was sort of cleaning out the cows, mucking out the cows, getting up to get them in for milking. I was happy doing that because they had a dog called Ben and a pony which you could ride on.

I wasn鈥檛 unhappy because there were all the things that I hadn鈥檛 experienced, like a dog. It鈥檚 made me into a dog person, because I鈥檝e got dogs now. The dog called Ben made me into a dog person because it followed me everywhere when I went out to collect the cows at sort of half past five in the morning, (Summer and Winter I might add,) he was with me.

My bed was, urgh, if I think about it now, it was a sort of big sack full of straw and me and my sister had to share the bedroom and the bed at the end of the passageway.

The farm building was a sort of thatched building and they used to illegally, I think, at times during the war, slaughter their own pigs and hang them up in the stable to bleed.

And then we had to salt it (and this was terrible, I can remember doing it, and it made your hands sore for weeks and weeks,) you had to salt the pork down, and then it was put into barrels and salted down. So that was another job that we had to do. The other job that we had to do for slaughtering, (my sister used to have huge muscles,) they had a great big grindstone, about 2 foot across, that was out in the yard and she had to turn a handle and I had to the sharpen the knives. And that was another job we had.

It wasn鈥檛- I mean, when I think about it now, I was a sort of labourer- but I wasn鈥檛 unhappy doing it.

We used to go to the village school in Pyworthy, in between Holsworthy and Bude. The headteacher was called Molly Rowe, she sticks in my mind because she was vicious to say the least. A ruler across the knuckles was sort of a mild form of punishment.

I do remember that as children on a farm in the vicinity we used to have walk about 戮 of a mile to where the bus picked us up to go to school. The bus used to go from Holsworthy to Pyworthy. There was a great big pond there and every time the bus pulled up, the driver got out with a can of water and had to replenish the water on the bus. That always sticks in my memory because we used to say that the bus went on tadpole power! Because every time he got there he filled it up.

There were pleasant times, the school outings we went to Bude which wasn鈥檛 very far away, but basically, we worked on the farm. There were festival times on the farm. There was the farm- Killatree, that we were on, there was another farm which was slightly larger- with workers houses, two or three cottages, and there was a farm further on down the lane. And, at harvest time, the thrasher used to come down with the steam engines and everything and all the farms used to muck in with the thrashing. And it used to be almost a sort of festival time. It used to start in one farm, and you all went in there to help, then they came to your farm and everybody helped there.

The other thing I remember- this sticks in my mind- the farm that I was on had the railway going from Halliwell Junction, you had Holsworthy, and it used to run across the bottom of the farm to Bude. And I always remember we used to spend a lot of time there, me and my sister, sort of sitting down by the railway, when we didn鈥檛 have something to do, just to wave to the people that were going past. Because, when we weren鈥檛 at school we were fairly isolated from other children by the farmer.

His housekeeper鈥檚 name is Gladys Bright- I remember that now- Gladys Bright. She was rather a sort of subdued female, but she had a sort of sense of humour about her because, (it鈥檚 odd when you leave London and you go into the country, you don鈥檛 realise what鈥檚 going on. We lived in this thatched house, and there were rats in the house and at night when you were in bed you could hear them running across the roof and running about. And we sort of mentioned it to her,) she said 鈥渢ake no notice they鈥檙e only playing football!鈥� That was her sort of method of trying to make it easier for us. Because she was a paid housekeeper she had to be very careful because she wanted to keep her job.

When it was time for me to go up to a better school,( which was Holsworthy, so I had to get a bus going the other way,) I wasn鈥檛 happy about leaving my sister. Because we were on the farm and we were kept away from other children so we didn鈥檛 know too many other children but, eventually, I did go to a school at Holsworthy. Don鈥檛 recollect too much about it other than the fact that I passed an exam to go to Grammar School and my parents said 鈥渘o,鈥� because it meant moving me away from my sister to Oakhampton. I think the Grammar school was in Oakhampton, so I never did get to Grammar School. I ended up at a secondary school.

I got into a lot of trouble at the big school because I met up with lads that were from a similar area to me in South London and it was 鈥淯s鈥� against the country boys. So you could quite easily get into a lot of trouble. And you were often given detentions, the chastiser, all sorts of things, for getting into trouble.

And the thing that sticks in my mind is that when I came back to London, eventually, (it wasn鈥檛 the end of the war because my parents were most adamant that we should stay together as children.) So we came back before the end of the war, they brought us back. (My father was on essential works at Cosham, I think, that鈥檚 why he wasn鈥檛 in the Forces.) We never did sort of get to be a family. Even after I got married I was never close to my parents. My sister adjusted better than I did, but I never could get close to my family and, consequently, lost contact with family after I got married. I only know when my father died, never knew when my mother died and don鈥檛 have a lot to do with my sister now. And that鈥檚 the effect it had on me.

[The hard manual labour on the farm came as] a terrible shock. Eventually you could use a pitchfork, but you鈥檇 never seen a pitchfork, had you?! You鈥檇 never seen a grindstone. You鈥檇 never seen a pig slaughtered, which was quite harrowing the first time you saw it- they used to bring the pigs in to the stable and tie it up and slit its throat. You sort of eventually got into it.

The killing of the pigs, when you went into the army afterwards, blood didn鈥檛 mean a thing to you. You鈥檇 seen a pig strung up and a bloke would come up and slit it in the throat and bleed the pig before they cut it up and salted it. Blood didn鈥檛 mean anything to you.

And you could get up in the morning and go out and bring the cows in, they were all milked by hand. I mean you鈥檇 get kicked and that sort of thing but it was a definite sort of change of life. Not so much for my sister because Gladys was softer [on her.] But because I was a boy [they] thought that I should be able to manage.

My sister could carry buckets of milk, back to the house- you carried it back to the house and it was churned.

And then you had to put it on a trolley and take it up to the gate by the road and put it up on a stand so that when the milk lorry came along- Torrington Dairies, (that鈥檚 something else I remember,) were the lorries that came along in the morning. So you had to have the milk out there at a certain time so the lorries that came along could pick the milk up. You were working to a time period all the time. And in the evenings the milk was left in the barn to keep cool- (that鈥檚 another thing I remember, when I came back to London milk never tasted the same because the milk that we were drinking was straight from the cow.)

Standing by the pond to pick the bus up, we met other children then but once we were out of school we didn鈥檛 meet other children very often. He kept us away deliberately. [The other children were in cottages close by.] But we weren鈥檛 allowed out past the farm gate.

After I got married I kept thinking I鈥檇 go back to see Killatree, just to see what it was like. I went back and Killatree farm was still there but it was all modernised and everything. And then I went into Pyworthy where I went to school and I asked if [Gladys鈥橾 family were still there. And I was told they were still there. So I walked down to the house, (I had my wife and my son with me,) and I knocked on the door. And I said to my son, 鈥淲alk in behind me, will you, please.鈥� And when I got into the house, (Gladys was then 90 something and was bedridden,) She looked at my son and said 鈥淭hat鈥檚 you!鈥� She was in tears over it. I think she died a little while afterwards. She was a softer person, Gladys.

It was like an adventure really. I mean when I came back to London, (because my parents wouldn鈥檛 let us split up,) it was another different life. I was one of the original street urchins, I think! Because we used to play on bomb sites and do all sorts of things. You were tougher than the children that had stayed and you were aware of it, you know. You were aware that you鈥檇 worked on farms and you were tougher than the children that hadn鈥檛 been away.

Probably an experience you wouldn鈥檛 volunteer for but it probably set you up for life. I was divorced from my family afterwards, I feel. I鈥檝e seen my sister probably four times in twenty years and we phone one another about once a year just to make sure one another are still alive. But my children see my sister and talk to my sister more than I do. She鈥檚 a widow and she lives down near Brighton somewhere. When I got married I feel it鈥檚 the first time I got a family. I didn鈥檛 feel I was a member of a family. I thought I was trotted off, had my sister to look after, had some responsibility, and was quite happy to be on my own.

I did national service. And when I came out of national service I went into the same industry as my father which was possibly a mistake. Because my father was quite famous in the industry and everybody knew him. But it had an effect on me that I always wanted to go one better than my father. Because he was well known, I wanted, not to be compared with him, but to do more than he did. So it did have that effect on me that I had a drive in the industry, and got on quite well!

It鈥檚 indelible on your life. Even to this day you do things and you think- I often think when I鈥檓 using a stone to sharpen knives, 鈥淢y sister used to have to turn the handle.鈥� And when you wanted something for dinner, (you go to Sainsburys now,) but then you had to go down in the garden and dig up potatoes or the carrots or whatever you wanted-they used to store the potatoes in great big mould outside, so you have to dig part of the mould and then cover it up again in the Winter. You had fingers and thumbs with calluses and blisters on, it wasn鈥檛 something that ever bothered the farmer I might add! It didn鈥檛 bother him at all that we were鈥� I think I cut myself once and had to be taken off to hospital and, when I came back, I鈥檇 got some stitches in my hand and he said, 鈥淲ell you better put a glove on."

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