大象传媒

This story has been written to the 大象传媒 People's War site by CSV Storygatherer Coralie, on behalf of Edward Lethbridge. The story has been added to the site with his permission and Edward fully understands the terms and conditions of the site.

Mr Lethbridge had farmed at Frittiscombe since 1932 and brought up a family of 7 boys and 2 girls there. It was quite a big farm by local standards. As the boys grew up and left school they worked on the farm. Edward was the eldest son, and he clearly remembers the last 6 months of his schooling at Stokenham. They had moved into Frittiscombe by then and his help was much needed on the farm, so he stayed at home to give a hand until it came to Friday afternoon, when his father said 鈥漎ou鈥檇 better go to school this afternoon, just to say you鈥檝e been to school this week鈥�! He鈥檚 not sure what he learnt, but he had always been good with numbers, which has probably stood him in good stead for the rest of his life. Life was hard on the farm 鈥� they had no electricity 鈥� just candles and lamps. Although Stokenham had electricity soon after the war, it was still some time before it was taken up to the farm. Edward remembers that at Churchlands Farm, where they lived before coming to Frittiscombe, his mother, besides bringing up a large family, had the cows to milk by hand and the yard to clean each day. It was there that they had one cow, which took exception to his mother, and was liable to kick if she tried to milk her, so Edward鈥檚 first job when he got home from school each evening was to sit down and milk this cow, because she didn鈥檛 object to him!

In November 1943, they had a dairy herd, sheep and a few fowls, one working dog and some cats. Much of the land was arable 鈥� about 75 acres for corn, mainly barley, some wheat and 30-40 acres for root crops, mangolds and 4 acres of potatoes, that they were obliged to grow. To work the land they used 6 horses and 1 tractor. They also kept a few hives of bees.

During the war, Edward became a member of the local Home Guard. Each Sunday morning they went down to Stokeley Farm for training. He remembers that they always brought their rifles home together with 5 rounds of live ammunition.

On the day that the news came to evacuate, Edward was on a contract job, threshing corn in Dittisham. A man, on behalf of the Admiralty, searched him out and told him that he must return to Blackawton immediately, to thresh all the corn for the farmers who had to move out of the area. This was November 13th 1943 and they had their work cut out to meet the deadline of December 20th. Besides, threshing, he helped many farmers shift their machinery and equipment out from their farms to places where they could be stored for the time being.

On their own farm there were 20-30 corn stacks and 7 or 8 hay stacks to be dealt with. Again Edward reminisces that as a lad, when the corn was stacked, his father told him to go and thatch them, but didn鈥檛 tell him how it should be done, which meant that he had to become a self-taught thatcher. The wheat they grew had stalks like reeds and was used for thatching the ricks. The corn, hay and harvested root crops were removed to Loddiswell, where the cattle and sheep were taken in by a relative, for the duration. The calves that were born during this time were sold off when they were ready, and in fact, none of the livestock returned to Frittiscombe when they were allowed to return. They decided to leave the bees where they were to fend for themselves. The packing up of the goods and chattels in and around the farmhouse was left to Mrs Lethbridge, since all the men and boys were working on the farm.

During the evacuation period, Edward had a job in Exeter as a Maintenance Foreman for the War Agricultural Committee, and at 26, was doing well earning 拢7 a week plus overtime. (In 1945 the average farm labourer earned 拢3 a week, and had to pay his rent out of that). At the weekends he was able to come home in his Austin 10 motor-car, to 80, Church Street, Kingsbridge, where he and his wife lived for that year. The older brothers were working on other farms or as Agricultural contractors during this time. After it was all over, the family split up and it completely changed their lives. Edward鈥檚 brothers got their own farms, or went into agricultural machinery businesses.

By June 1944, after the Americans had left, they wanted Edward back in the evacuated area to help in the clearing up of the farms, so that the farmers could move in as soon as possible, to get their farms stocked and winter crops planted. The Exeter Depot was very reluctant to let him go. In that month, the War Agricultural Committee began work on the farms on the edge of the area, where there was less likelihood of live ammunition being left around, and then moved systematically towards the coast as the bomb disposal teams had finished clearing the ground. Great haulage trucks brought loads and loads of equipment from Exeter to do the job. Edward鈥檚 first job was to cut the hay, and then another team would come in after him to gather it. Next, the winter wheat and oats, which had been sown before farmers knew that they had to get out, ripened, and was ready for harvesting, which again was done 鈥� with a second team following on to gather it in. It was threshed and sold off by the W.A.C. 鈥� probably to recoup some of the costs of this whole operation. The fallow land was in such a mess 鈥� so overgrown with weeds and brambles - that it was decided to plough it and re-seed with grass ready for grazing in a few months鈥� time. In order to keep the machines working they brought the paraffin up to the fields so that they could fill up on the spot. The field boundaries had been destroyed, and again the Committee undertook the restoration, using Italian prisoners of war to put up angle posts and barbed wire. Fifty years later, some of these posts could still be seen, if you knew where to look for them, but they were beginning to rust out by then. The Council undertook to clear out the lanes, after the levels had been raised to the tops of the banks, for the better access of the heavy American equipment 鈥� but it puzzled Edward 鈥� where did they take all that soil?

Going in and out of the area was restricted. Where the road from Oddiscombe House joins the main road to Kingsbridge, there was a sentry, and anyone with legitimate business was issued with a pass, which had to be shown every time they went in or our of the area. There was a similar sentry post at Blackpool Sands. Obviously, there were sentry posts at all roads entering the area, until the land was considered safe for people to come and go.

The farmers were allowed back to their land in September 1944, and were generously compensated for the damage caused by the Americans. Edward and his wife moved back into Island House, Stokenham, around Christmastime 1944, and found the farmhouse in a good state of repair, but one of the barns on the farm had disappeared without a trace. On his return, he went to check on the bees 鈥� they were still at Frittiscombe, so he took one of the hives back to their garden.

His father rented him some of the land that he owned, and gave him a corner of a field to build a bungalow for his family. Later, Edward added to his acreage by buying part of Stokeley Barton Farm. Before they actually moved back to live, he brought in some sheep to graze where they would, and travelled from Kingsbridge daily to tend them. With few of the fences replaced at the time, it was difficult to keep track of them, and sometimes they wandered through to Stokeley. On his own farm, he was able to replace all his fences with stakes and barbed wire that the Americans had left on the beach - and those were not the only things left by the Americans! Edward found, under the hedges, dozens of tins of corned beef and stew, and hundreds of cigarettes, and since he smoked then, this was a prize indeed!

The next thing he did was to buy some bullocks to graze the ground. There was so much work to do that Edward used to work an 18-hour day from 6a.m. in the morning until midnight 鈥� his wife complained because she didn鈥檛 see a lot of him. In the summer, with double summer time, it was light until nearly midnight. By first cutting down the weeds and then ploughing, the ground came back to shape within about 12 months. Now and then, he would come across a shell 鈥� he would pick it up and put it in the hedge and then phone the Police who would come along to deal with it. His crops in 1945 were as good as he had ever had. He planted 20 acres of barley and it yielded 2 tons per acre, using only simple phosphates and pottage as fertilizer.

Edward and his wife have lived in Stokenham ever since 1944, and with the best view in the village from his house, he doesn鈥檛 want to move!

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