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Boyhood wartime memories of Turvey and Harrold Priory School.

These memories have been submitted with permission of Mrs. Janet Cockings on behalf of her late husband, Mr. Derek Cockings.

鈥淚 think we had about 30 odd evacuees came here. We had one. I can鈥檛 remember what his name was, he wasn鈥檛 here for that long. For the simple reason that my cousin Margaret鈥檚 mother died in Barrow in Furness. She died the day war broke out, my uncle was in the police force and consequently she came down here to live with us. It put the evacuee out to accommodate her. She worked in Norburn鈥檚 shop in Turvey.

Wartime memories of Harrold Priory School
We used to catch the bus at 20 past eight. We used to have to walk from Harrold Turn to the school. Bailey鈥檚 bus from here and he dropped us off at the junction at Harrold and we had to walk there. The bus went off onto Podington and Wymington. The bus brought us home first and then it went back to Harrold to take the children home to Podington and Wymington for the simple reason that it was Bailey鈥檚 bus that had got the contract for doing the work run for Odell Leathers. So whilst it came back from Podington it stopped at Odell Leathers to run back round Olney. It was all basically based around the fuel saving system in those days.
Another thing we got up to when we went to school, you know the cross roads in Harrold, thatched cottage in the narrow bit, there was a shop - a tailoring shop. Prisoners of war worked in there as tailors, making uniforms and wasitnames for other prisoners - us old boys used to aggravate them, take the mickey out of them. Do what you like as we used to go by. They came out one morning with scissors in their hands! The next day we daren鈥檛 go down that way, we had to go down Church Walk to school or down by the back of what was the old surgery, we were scared stiff to go past the shop!

Picking the potatoes, picking brussels, cutting cabbage or whatever, no matter what the weather we had to do it. Parsnips, whatever was in season. Every boy in the school or two boys, shared a plot and you had to look after that plot for twelve months of the school year. Through the autumn you set all the seeds. If you had cabbages on your plot you had to go and cut the cabbages, if someone else had got onions they went and got the onions, oh yes it was all self contained. We are talking about 1944/45.

I had to stay an extra twelve months, they put up the school leaving age. I wasn鈥檛 fourteen until the end of September and had to stay another twelve months round and then they changed it and I had to stay another twelve months round, this affected four of us. Well, obviously we had been through the whole school procedure and I spent all my time gardening for Stan Faulkner in his garden, gardening around the school grounds, grass mowing and gardening in the garden!

Once you reached the age of fourteen you could have two weeks a year from school to go potato picking. You used to get a blue card from the Headmaster to say that you were old enough. Len Bullock and some one else, we went up to Knights. You had to report to school and then you went there all day. I think we got 10 shillings a day, we done our fortnight. You didn鈥檛 start until 10.00am, the farmers used to have breakfast between 9 and half past and then we started at 10.00am. We used to have an hours break for a packed lunch but we were always finished by 3.00pm. I mean, you were only working for four hours. The next year we went to Taylors at Carlton. We used to catch the bus back to Carlton and were dropped off at the corner there - it鈥檚 Richies now. We went down there potato picking. We finished the two weeks and they asked for an extension for another fortnight because potato harvest had been delayed through bad weather. We went to Grove Farm near Crab Tree. Over there we got a 拢1 a day, we were absolutely staggered the first week when we got 拢5. The advantage up there was that he had the lads from Carlton School. He said, 'You stay on the trailer' and they threw up the sacks of potatoes up onto the lorry and we stacked them on the lorry. Then we took them some where else and tipped them off, so we never did any actual potato picking! We had an easy fortnight up there really!
Rabbit was cheap, fresh food. My grandfather was signalman at Railway End. He would get on the pick up train Bedford to Northampton. That driver would stop anywhere along this line and set snares and when he came back he had got a rabbit, they used to do that. There were rabbits all the way along that line.

There was a big army place at Brayfield. They had the house, Nissen huts and buildings in the grounds a 鈥楥SD鈥� Central Supply Depot was up at the Station. All the Army foodstuffs came in by rail and was stored in the sheds up there and then distributed from there. It was a brick building, all tiled out, a butcher鈥檚 shop. All the meat, lots of black marketing went on up there. When the rail trucks came into the goods yards they had metal rollers which they set up from the train to the stores, the goods were pushed along straight into the stores. When my dad was carrying the cattle round to the slaughterhouses from the markets, Olney, Northampton, Kettering and Bedford, everywhere he went there was nobody there at these slaughterhouses, seven and eight at night. They knew where the key was to get in, all the drivers did, he had a knife under his seat, 鈥榃hat shall we have for dinner tonight when we get home, boy?鈥欌��

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