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This story was submitted to the People's War website by Claire Shaw on behalf of Ray Shaddick, the author and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I will always remember the day war was declared. I came out of Church Sunday School and saw the Village men congregated outside the London Inn, Kilkhampton. I was told instructions were given to them, that on Monday they were to go down to the Thynne Estate to cut sticks to ward off the enemy should an invasion take place.
All windows in the house had to be blacked out and our local Carpenter did a roaring trade in making "Blackout Blinds".
From the outset security was of prime importants. When War was declared the main lookout in Kilkhampton was on top of the Church Tower. For a while the only shelter on top of the tower was a tarpaulin. In the Hut was a telephone connected to the London Inn, and if the men on duty saw the enemy landing they were ordered to ring the landlord of the London Inn, Mr Charles Clark, who had to ring the powers to be. The Church was locked in case of enemy spies, and the keys were kept by the duty men on top of the tower. When the Relief Squad arrived they would shout up "Us be yer" and the keys would thenlowered over the side of the tower in a haversack to the men below.

Attendance at the Home Guard duties were strict, and if you missed one or two parades you were in trouble. One day the Home Guard was going to be inspected by a high ranking Officer and one farm labourer went hay harvesting instead of attending parade. For not attending he was dismissed from Home Guard but appionted Fire Warden of some 25 houses for which he was issued withe a stirrup pump and a bucket of sand.

Late in the War years the American soldiers were stationed at Cleave Camp Morwenstowe, and as children we would go to the head of the village and eagerly await the American Convoy when we were sure to recieve chewing gum and candies, and dried rations. Another occasion to look forward to was at School when we recieved parcels which came from the Red Cross, and I would generally recieve a bag of marbles.

There were isolated instances when a bomb was dropped in the area. One such occasion was when was dropped in the Tamar Lake, Kilkhampton, andanother time, the local Postman waived to an aeroplane that passed overhead, only a few hours later to learn that the plane dropped a bomb at Cleave Camp.

Exercises involving the Home Guard A.R.P Special Constables and the W.R.V.S Red Cross were periodically held in the village. For us young people it was great excitment and we were eager to take part because when we got to the Medical Centre which was the Grenville Rooms (the village Hall) we were given tea and refreshments. I remember on one such occasion, Ihad supposedly been shot in the leg, I had to lay on the pavement outside the London Inn and wait for a stretcher to carry me to the Grenville Room. At times exercises took place between the local Home Guard and the American Soldiers, who showed no regard for People's Gardens or land. In my case they ran all over my fathers garden, and even tore down my dads kidney bean row and trampled over his "small tilling". Was the air "Blue" the next day as these excercises usually took place over night.

Rastioning was as we know at a premium, and one of the slogans was "Make do and Mend". As a family we did very well, we had a Greengrocer in the small Hamlet of Wolley who could supply his friends with almost anything anything you wanted, with relatives in Canada and America we had a constant supply of clothes, and food such as sultanas, currents etc.

Our local Policeman would bring us back fresh eggs which he obtained from the American Cookhouse at Cleave Camp. These eggs were concealed in his Policemans Helmet, incase he met a Superior Officer.
We had two evacuees billeted with us and at night we would go up to the local playing field called the Lamb Park, when lookin towards Plymouth we could see the sky lit up as Plymouth was being bombed.

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