大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Chloe French from Crawley Library and has been added to the website on behalf of with her permission and she fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I had been evacuated to several places already, home again and then re-evacuated to Harwell near Banbury in Oxfordshire, a small farming village. The man of the house was a farm worker and we lived in a four-roomed cottage with no running water or electricity. Although I was only 7 years old when I arrived and eleven when I came back I was expected to do many jobs. Jobs like carrying water in galvanised buckets from the pump down the road and during my lunch break form school I took the man鈥檚 lunch to him in a basin with a plate on top to whichever field he was working in at the time.

Some of the things the lady did to earn a buck or two were plucking feathers from chickens and ducks for other villagers, taking in washing and doing any job as necessary for the next door neighbour, who was a teacher and had a large place to look after. I remember weeding her crazy paving.

The couple I lived with kept pigs and now and again one was slaughtered and every part of the pig was used for food, the hams and sides of bacon were hung up in the inglenook fireplace after they had been salted. I had to turn the intestines inside out while they were laying in a bath of salt water, this had to be done several times and after this they were plaited and were called chitterlings, they would snip lengths off and fry it for breakfast.

In the spring when the violets were in flower under the hedgerows we would pick them and make them into bunches with a frill of ivy leaves around them. The lady would get money for these by taking them into Banbury where there was quite a large market and she would sell them to one of the stall-holders.

We had a large walnut tree growing in the garden and in the autumn the nuts fell down, but they still had the mushy outer shells on. It was my job to remove this and make them nice and clean, so the lady could also sell them in Banbury market. I did not like this job as my hands got very badly stained and I looked like a very heavy smoker.

We would also cut up old clothes into strips and peg them into sacking to make rugs for the stone flag floors in the cottage because the stone floors were very cold.

I was always expected to muck in and help but as I grew older I realised I was that sort of person anyway, practical and willing to have a go.

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