大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Mary Lovick from Bodsham Primary School and has been added to the website on behalf of Peter Wood with his permission and they fully understand the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was 14戮 years when war commenced, having left Bodsham School at the age of 14 years and was working on the family farm and this I continued to do as farming was a reserved occupation as the country needed all the food that could be produced.
We used to sit in the kitchen having our meals during the Battle of Britain and see the German Bombers coming over the S.E. in waves.
One day in February 1941 a hurricane which had been hit crashed only yards from the farmhouse, it spun down like a leaf in the wind, the pilot had managed to bale out earlier. For most of the war a search light was situated on the farm. The fuel for this unit was delivered by lorry, but one winter the snow was so deep that the lorry couldn鈥檛 get through so the soldiers made a sledge and they borrowed our cart horse and my brother or I used to go with them to lead it to collect the petrol and their rations from the main road nearly two miles away. This was always about 7.30 p.m. in pitch dark, no lights allowed.
One day I was ploughing one of the fields and when I went back the next day there was a hole in the field where a bomb had dropped, we reported it to the authorities who came to inspect the crater, they said it was made by a 250 lb bomb which were usually dropped in twos but a second one has never been found.
When we were cutting corn one day we saw a parachutist land in an adjacent field, he turned out to be an American Pilot who was delighted that he was on dry land as he thought he was still over the channel.
One day I went to cut some Lucerne to feed our bull and found the body of an airman whose parachute had failed to open.
We were threshing corn one year when a glider which had become detached from its plane landed in a neighbouring field.

Farm work was important, so especially at harvest time members of the armed forces were sent to help. Sailors were helping on the stacks one time but whenever doodle bugs came over they used to throw themselves to the ground. We also used to have Land girls who went from farm to farm making thatch mats to cover the stacks.
When I was about 16陆 I joined the Home Guard and used to go on exercise and guard duties with them, the latter was mainly from the mid forties when we used to guard the railway at Westerhanger.

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