大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by CSV Storygatherer Lucy Thomas of Callington U3A on behalf of Marjorie Mahoney nee Watson. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

WW2 MEMORIES OF MARJORIE WATSON

Part 1

PRIMITIVE PRIVY

My name is Marjorie Watson and I was born at Haddlesey, which is near Selby, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on September 30th 1940 at 1.30 in the afternoon.

My memories go back to the age of three when we moved from Haddlesey to Gowdall, (now in the East Riding, but then in the West Riding of Yorkshire) where my father had rented a bigger farm, with better soil and better prospects. Mother refused point blank to move until the plumbing at the new farm had been sorted out, having had decent plumbing at the farm she was leaving. On one of the visits to the new place, she had noticed a well with a pump at the bottom of the garden and had no intention of going back to primitive living. There was also an outside privy with three holes, the middle hole being slightly smaller, (obviously a communal job), with pieces of tatty newspaper hanging on a nail within reach to be used when needed. This was housed in a funny, little sort of shed and the technical name for this in that part of Yorkshire was called an "earth closet". The back wall of the shed backed on to a field and there was a sort of square hole in the side with a sliding panel which went up and down from where the (euphemism) "night soil" was moved. I presume they put it on the fields but I don't really like to think about that now. Things have moved on a bit.

ITALIAN PRISONERS WORKING OUR FARM

At the time of our move to Gowdall Lodge in 1943, the prisoners of war arrived to help Father work the land because all the able-bodied men who weren't in reserved occupations had been drafted and were busy fighting the war. We had five Italians billeted on us. Of those, I remember Luigi, Brunet and Tonio, but I can't recall much about the other two. Until she found out that Tonio was a cook back in Italy, Mother fed us all en famille in the kitchen in front of the old black-leaded range. As soon as she found out Tonio could cook, the POWs stayed next door in the cottage which was joined on to the farmhouse, totally self-contained. From their point of view, after being in prison, it must have been heaven because they had their own freedom within four walls. Within reason, as long as we knew where they were, they could do what they wanted to do.

As far as we knew, Luigi was the only one who "left his mark" on the village in the shape of a very good-looking son. Brunet was over six feet tall and came from Bari in southern Italy, which was then and still is now, an extremely poor area. He'd left a wife and family there and was obviously dreadfully homesick so he attached himself on to me as a sort of surrogate big uncle. I really wasn't allowed to fraternize with them because I would think they were the first - and up to that stage - literally the only foreigners Mother had ever seen, or come across. After all, we were at war with them and to Mother, being a good Yorkshire lass, right was right and wrong was wrong. Fraternizing, even if you were a child, with prisoners really wasn't quite the right thing to do, but, unbeknownst to her Brunet and I became firmest of friends. He used to carry me around on his shoulders which, in the world of a child, meant I was seven feet up which was absolutely fantastic. It was lovely.

Even though Tonio was a cook, Mother banned us from eating any of the food because the prisoners seemed able to catch and cook anything. Well, they had to. They needed the food and as it was strictly rationed, even on the farm, they needed the intake because they were doing heavy manual labour. They used to start at half past six, or light, and finish at dark, and it was seven days a week. But Father was pretty fair, he made sure they had time off at the weekends, in between feeding the cattle or milking them, or whatever they did. Those that hadn't had anything to do with horses rapidly became very able with the horses, Italians being Italians. They adore animals as well as children and they were marvelous with them. They also helped with thrashing days. Agriculture in Italy was much more primitive so it must have been a terrific learning curve for them. I hope those that went back to an agricultural life when they got home had learned a lot of new methods and things in England so that it was of some benefit for them. Although they didn't want to be in the war to start with, hopefully something good came out of it for them.

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