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With my elder sister, I was privileged to ‘help out’ at the local canteen which was situated upstairs at the back of the Congregational Church in Thornbury. Twice a week, in the evening, my aunt took us to the canteen to help her prepare numerous sandwiches, and urns of hot water for making endless cups of tea and Camp coffee.

The majority of the servicemen we served were members of the Maritime Regiment, all volunteers, who manned the guns on the merchant ships after they were armed in the second or third year of the war. These volunteers were posted mainly on to the Arctic convoys to Archangel and Murmansk, highly dangerous missions.

The soldiers were from all walks of life and aged between eighteen and sixty plus. They were always cheerful and polite to us. I remember two men in particular, both physical training instructors, who were identical in appearance — could have been twins, but were no relation to one another. They were good-looking and fun — very appealing to an eleven year old girl! The only way of telling them apart was that one was a sergeant and the other a crown sergeant (a crown between the chevrons, a rank unique, I think, to the Maritime Regiment). I also remember an older man, in the sixty plus bracket, who invariably left his false teeth hanging on a hook above his bed in the barracks — with his marked Scottish accent and no teeth he was difficult to understand at times! Many of these soldiers did not return from their convoy duties.

We seldom hear of this volunteer regiment, whose members made such sacrifices for us during the latter half of the war, and who made such an impression on me as a young girl. If I can stir up just a few memories on their behalf, it will have been well worth writing about them.

Spitfire Fund

My brother, sister and I took part in raising money for the Spitfire Fund. We were provided with a small sealed glass container filled with onion seeds. Our neighbours were very patient with us as we persuaded them to guess the number of seeds and pay for the privilege! I don’t know who counted these tiny seeds and I never did find out how many there were. I’m afraid I can’t remember what the ‘prize’ was, or who won, but I do know that we collected a lot of money from a lot of generous people. We were told that we’d probably collected enough for half a propeller!

Sick Parade

Many of the soldiers lived in a camp built near Thornbury Castle. In the early years of the war they didn’t have a Medical Officer and an local GP was asked to act as MO to deal with the ‘sick parade’. The soldiers who reported sick were marched up from their camp at double-quick time, dealt with by the GP and marched back again — I’m sure they often felt much worse by the time they returned to their barracks!

Invisible mends

I remember we had a big Christmas cake in 1939 , made in the shape of a castle — cooked long before the start of the war, but not iced until Christmas. I think we all felt a bit guilty about it, so my father invited three soldiers, walking past our house, to come in and have a ‘cuppa’ and to share it with us. They were rather taken aback, but enjoyed themselves — we kept in touch with them for some months, and they would come for tea and to have their uniforms mended — with my hair! It was long, worn in plaits, and a mousey brown colour that blended in with the khaki colour of the fabric. My aunt made invisible, surprisingly strong, repairs.

Mementos

Towards the end of the war, a small prisoner-of-war camp was built in Gloucester Road, not for from Thornbury Hospital. The Italian prisoners who populated it were put to work on the local farms. In their spare time some of them made baskets which they decorated and sold for ‘pocket money’. I bought two, one of which serves me to this day. In a few years’ time it will be an antique — like me!

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