´óÏó´«Ã½

I was born in 1914, so I was 24 when the war began. By that time my Mother had died — she died when we were children, so we had a housekeeper for a time. We lived in a big old house ‘Sutton Villa Farm’ in Meole — it was as you come out of Meole to go to Bayston Hill, just over the bridge. We looked out across Meole and we could see up Mill Bank; we could see Meole Church which had a lot of trees around it and there used to be a lot of birds living there (I remember the Wagoner telling me it was going to be a good fine summer, he said ‘the rooks are building their nests high up — it’s a sure sign of a good summer’) — The house was a lovely big old cream house with a huge sycamore tree out the front.

Living there was me, my younger sister Claire and my Father. We also had a girl who helped us — she lived in, and of course there were men on the farm who helped too, (they’d be outside though).

The housekeeper left after a few years and I had to run the house. I also kept poultry. I used to sell the eggs locally but of course they were rationed. We used to let quite a number of local people have them, on the quiet of course. They’d have to hide them when they went away with them — sometimes in their handbags! We’d keep some of the eggs laid for ourselves too, and it provided a bit of pocket money for me.

We also had a milk round — I didn’t go on that, but when the churns came back at midday they all had to be thoroughly washed: first in cold water then in hot water — so soap of course, then in scalding water to make sure they were really clean and free from any germs. That was quite a big job every day as soon as we’d had our lunch.

The house had seven bedrooms and there were five of them in use. We had plenty of housework and cleaning to do too on top of all of our other work.

We grew vegetables too, only for ourselves though. We grew potatoes, peas and beans, cucumbers and lettuce - all the usual household vegetables, and there’d be kidney beans which we could freeze as well as eating. We didn’t grow swedes in the garden as we grew them in the field and we could always use those. We grew quite a lot of potatoes and a lot people used to come to the farm for them; those who’d got a vehicle or a good big wheelbarrow would put them in the wheelbarrow and wheel them back to their homes.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Becky Barugh of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Eva Sambrook and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

See another of Eva's stories:

• 2) Shrewsbury in the war

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.