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When World War II began I lived at home with my mother, father and youngest sister, Joan (my older three sisters, Hilda, Olive and Elsie all having married and moved away) in Vicar Street. I have one or two memories of Wymondham at that time. The main one was that my mother, Beatrice Rudrum — a member of the Methodist Chapel on Town Green — worked as a volunteer to help run the Methodist School Room which was used nightly as a canteen to feed the soldiers who were billeted locally. Some nights I accompanied her to help out. I seem to recall the mainstays in the food line being beans or cheese on toast. The canteen was run by Mr. Arthur Pratt. Later, when American troops arrived, mainly stationed at Hethel and Deopham, they opened an Anglo/AmericanCanteen above the Snooker Hall on Town Green. They, of course, brought their own supplies and were very generous with sweets and nylons!
My other memory of Wymondham is that when the siren sounded, my mother would not allow us to take cover in our home, we had to walk around to Church Street (about five minutes walk) and go into a large underground coal and wood store belonging to the Solicitors, Pomeroy & Son (both the coal store and the firm of solicitors exist to this day!) We had a neighbour, Mrs. Howes, who lived another half a mile out of Wymondham, at Cavick, and she and her daughter, Myrtle, also joined us in the coal hole! Mr. Howes being otherwise engaged as an Air Raid Warden.
When I was old enough to be called up I chose to go as a Munitions Worker, rather than join the A.T.S. I was sent to Baldock to a magnificent building that had been the Kayser Bondor underwear factory. It returned to that after the war and today is a magnificent … Tesco’s. However, in my time it was turned into the Cosmos Valve Factory. I went to the factory with two other girls from Wymondham, Winnie Lister, who still lives in Orchard Way and Sylvia Bray (deceased). The work at the valve factory was very boring. We were all put into private lodgings and I shared a room and a bed with a girl who was a complete stranger to me. She worked nights in Letchworth and I worked days in Baldock, so we were in modern parlance ‘Hotbedding’.

In March 1943 I returned to Wymondham and on March 13th I married James Alfred Battleday in the Methodist Chapel. My husband was in a reserved occupation — he was a saw doctor for the C.W.S. Brushworks and as such had to keep all the saws in running order — sharpening, welding and generally keeping them in good repair. Upon marriage, women were automatically released from war duties. On my wedding day I wore a brown costume with a beautiful brown hat with a big veil. There was no honeymoon; the wedding reception was in my parents’ living room in Vicar Street and I remember the wedding cake was chocolate flavoured. After the wedding we lived with my parents for a while; then we moved into one of the Brushworks tied cottages, where we lived happily for thirty years; we were then able to buy my parents’ cottage and move back to Vicar Street for our retirement.

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