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This story has been written onto the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by Cornwall CSV Storygatherer, Martine Knight, on behalf of Joy Hone. Her story was given to the Trebah WW2 Video Archive, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2004. The Trebah Garden Trust understands the terms and conditions of the site.

I remember the day war broke out and my father being worried that, as an ex-Navy man, he’d be called up again. A few days later we went to Chynale to pick up gas masks. We were all given an ID number. I can still remember mine — WBEU313.
At that time we lived in the Sithney area and father was worried for our safety so we rented our bungalow out and moved to a bungalow in Porthtowan. As this was next to Nancekuke airfield it wasn’t such a good move! We couldn’t even use the beach as it was mined.

One moonlit night, when I was eight, my father got us all out of bed and made us lie on the kitchen floor. I can remember the floor shaking as an incendiary bomb exploded in our driveway. He got us all up and we ran, in our pyjamas and bare feet, into the village where there was a old mine adit. All the village children were put into the adit with rugs to keep warm.

When we went back to the bungalow my bedroom was covered with shrapnel so if I’d been in it I probably would have been in a bad state.
Luckily, my father had, the week before, bought a bungalow in Redruth (for £1200 complete with furniture) and so we moved there almost straight away.

Blackouts were awful and we had to get under the kitchen table or the bed when the air raids were on.

Although there was rationing we never seemed to go hungry. Everyone bartered so if you did a bit of work for someone you might get paid in butter or apples. Farmers always had a pig or something hidden and, of course, milk which could be made into butter or cream. A lot of black marketing went on, but it was kept quiet.
My father’s business was in the motor trade and when he was called up into the Army my mother carried it on for him. She’d go up to Bristol and places to collect vehicles he’d bought and bring them back. One lovely big, black car was, I think, a Hudson Terraplane. Mother was thrilled one day when she hired it out to the Americans at a very good rate. When it came back not only did it smell of perfume, but it was full of petrol, which was worth a lot then. We were told afterwards that it had been hired to General Eisenhower.

In the run up to D-Day lorries were hidden in little areas to the sides of roads where the hedge was built up and covers pulled over. These areas are now many of the passing places on our Cornish roads.

Video details CWS110804

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