大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by Doreen Bennett on behalf of Lionel Reinford Goldsworthy the author, and has been added to the website with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

WAR TIME MEMORIES

I was born in 1928, by the time war was declared I was 11 years old. I remember 11 o鈥檆lock on the 3rd September well. We were living on a farm called Merthen Manor, near Gweek. The farm was two miles away from our school in Constantine.

When I came home from school, I went to the field were father was working, to drive the Fordson tractor so he could have his tea break. I was driving when I was just 11 years old.

When I heard on the radio that war had been declared I ran to one of the corn fields where my father and others were corn making. The fields on the farm were mostly 40 acres each. With one tractor father had to spend long hours in the fields.

Father left this farm for another at Scorrier House Farm in about 1940. We children had to go to school at Treleigh. By this time we had also taken in three evacuees into the family home who were from the East End of London.

At Treleigh School, when I was about 12 years old, we all had to do our bit for the war effort. War Agricultural came to the school and asked if any boys could drive a Fordson tractor and I said 鈥淵es鈥�. I spent about a year working the fields driving tractors. An army lorry took us from the school to the farms every day.

I saw war action when we were living at Merthen Farm. Mother had a friend who lived in a cottage near the Helford River. Every evening my brother and I had to take a can of milk to the cottage. After school on one evening as I was walking down across the fields we heard a plane, it was a German bomber which was flying very low and heading for Falmouth Docks, where it dropped a bomb on a tanker, we could see the crew well.
At Merthen Farm AA guns were put in some the fields near our home.

At bedtime, Scorrier House was a frightening time as my brothers were afraid of the planes. One night a German plane came overhead, released its bombs and we heard them whistle for a while, and then explode a mile away. Redruth station was bombed about the same time.

When D Day was announced on the radio, there were Yanks everywhere around Scorrier. There was a convoy of trucks from Mount Ambrose right through to Falmouth. At Scorrier there was at a petrol dump to supply petrol to all vehicles en route.

There was a curfew after 6 o鈥檆lock every night.

My Gran was taken sick at Scorrier and the doctor was called. After he examined her the doctor said someone had to go to his surgery for pills. The doctor asked the US Army to supply an escort to take me to Chacewater and back.

Scorrier House and some fields were taken over by the army.

Canadian soldiers were there with tanks and other vehicles. At this time we were living in Double summertime, which meant it did not go dark until after 10pm, which was a big help for the farmers and factories. I remember coming in from the cornfields with a Fordson tractor and trailer in the dark.

Father was a member of the home guard.

At one time in 1943-1944 I had three uniforms to wear being St John Ambulance, Treleigh Army Cadets and St Ives Sea Cadets, Camborne.

In July 1945 when I was 16 years old I joined the Great Western Railway as a locomotive fireman at Long Rock, Penzance. By August 1945 VJ Day came. I remember tying down whistles of engines in steam at the Long Rock Engine shed.

In 1947 I was called to do Army Service. I ended up in a war in Malaya during 1948-1949. In 1951 I left the railway to join the Royal Navy.

We were issued with gas masks and had to carry them everywhere. Blackout all the windows everywhere when the war was on. I had to help my father to make blackout covers for our downstairs rooms to put up on the outside of the windows. With the shortage of coal I had to help with the cross cut saw to cut wood every weekend.

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