大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Carolyn Bull, a volunteer from Millennium Volunteers, on behalf of Gwendoline Phyllis Hayton and has been added to the site with her permission. Gwendoline Phyllis Hayton fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

My family had a small hotel where we used to live, called the Old Eagles and of course, they were very, very busy during the war. And I was teaching at the time, you see. Every night I went to the hotel to help out. You couldn鈥檛 get the help there because the helpers were in the forces themselves.

The memory that sticks out the most for me during the war? Someone saying, 鈥淕wen! Will you marry me?!鈥� That is one of my powerful memories! This poor chap, he was so lonely and we got quite friendly, not over-friendly! And then one night he got carried away and he said 鈥淕wen? Will you marry meee?!鈥� And I said, 鈥淵es, of course I will.鈥� But he didn鈥檛 have a chance in those days because you were so busy with the war. This was at the Old Eagles. The chap used to come in. I can鈥檛 remember his name鈥 don鈥檛 know鈥� I had one or two鈥� I had several marriage proposals! I had about three of four one weekend. Absolutely! Bill someone, he was a postman. Bill Bathow, I think. We had all sorts. Not a lot of people got married. Wedding dresses were hard to get. In 1940, for my wedding I wore turquoise.

A couple of miles up the road was a place called Prees Heath, they had hundreds of service people at camp there, living there if you like. Air force and the army. Young army veterans. What I mean to say is, they had been in the army what seemed such a long time that people called them veterans. But they were only young. And these were the sort of people to visit the Old Eagles. A total mixture. Because Whitchurch was a small, rural busy, little market town. And with 27 pubs there. And the Old Eagles was one of them. It was the best one! Of course! All those pubs in one little town. You may say that English people liked a drink during the war!

There was a very nice chap who used to come into the Old Eagles. He wasn鈥檛 a service man. The pub had fairly low beams- it was a very old, historic place. We were there one night saying all the things we could do, showing how good and clever we all were, and this man said 鈥淚 can touch this ceiling with me toes.鈥� People said, 鈥淵ou couldn鈥檛!鈥� And so said 鈥淩ight鈥� and whoop, up went his feet and he did touch the ceiling with his toes! He wasn鈥檛 that tall either. He was a well built young chap. I can鈥檛 remember his name. I knew so many of them but I鈥檝e forgotten their names. He was just the man who could touch the ceiling with his toes. The 鈥楥eiling Toucher.鈥� He was a regular but a lot of them came in. if they came once to the Old Eagles, you knew you鈥檇 got them and they鈥檇 come again. They used to queue around the corner to get in! It was called Watergate Street. It would go from the door of the Old Eagles, right to the end of the Street. So to make it welcome I used to great them with a big smile and, without fail, I used to fill it with lovely flowers. And fires in the winter. I liked dong that because I wanted it to be as attractive and inviting for them as possible. And they were very appreciative. Maybe that鈥檚 why they kept coming back.

When there was a blackout there was a warden. All the lights went out, you had to take care. You couldn鈥檛 even smoke a cigarette because of the light. They used to tell us, 鈥淵ou wouldn鈥檛 believe what they are able to see from up there.鈥� And we wanted to stay safe. Good job we didn鈥檛 smoke!

Gradually, people who came to the pub would move away because the town was very small and they lost their enthusiasm for living in a little town.

There was rationing on everything, but I didn鈥檛 suffer from any shortage of anything. I was one of the lucky ones. It didn鈥檛 really seem to affect me. We weren鈥檛 particularly well-off, we had this business and the income was good. I was in my mid-twenties then. For a long, long time we never tasted a banana. And when the first load came in, oh, the excitement. You would have thought they were all made of gold! Bananas in the town! We scuttled off down to the shop, we knew where they would be. In a shop call Walford鈥檚.

The fires in houses used to light up when all the world was in darkness. When it was very early in the morning. We had a bath with taps and a toilet inside the pub. And one outside too. It was a hotel, you see. It accommodated about five people I think. Our front bedroom was very posh! It was really nice. We couldn鈥檛 offer bed and breakfast to lots of people.

The war was a sad time for everyone, but I used to have a lot of fun with the mixture of people who came into the Old Eagles. They were some of my most happy memories.

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