大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Neil Coleman. He fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

In August 1940 my mother had an illness and she sent me to stay with her sister while she recuperated. Auntie Clara was married to Uncle Arthur who was Head Stud Groom on a stud farm at Grange Farm, Little Ponton near Grantham in Lincolnshire.

Little Ponton was a tiny village with a Hall, a one-room school that took scholars from 5 to 14 years old, no pub 鈥� that was at Great Ponton a mile away and was split by the Great North Road or A1 as we know it, and it had a Post Office run by a very old lady who sold stamps and a few sweets but nothing else.

Auntie Clara鈥檚 cottage was semi-detached, built in 1867, and was at the western end of the village on Stroxton Lane, (pronounced Strawson) at the edge of the farm complex which comprised horse boxes, barns, smithy and sheep deep, and the lane it lay on went to the Bluebell Wood which was a square shaped copse.

At that time the village Local Defence Volunteers (Home Guard) had a dug-out under construction in the school grounds, the officer commanding lived at the Hall and Uncle Arthur was custodian of the Bren gun and had a clip of five bullets which had to be used ONLY in cases of emergency i.e like if Grantham was threatened by an invading Jerry horde. In the field opposite the cottage the Royal Artillery had set up an anti-aircraft gun emplacement just inside the gate, which peeved Uncle Arthur because he felt it got in the way of his horse-drawn binder, which meant a couple of hours extra scything at the entrance so he could get his binder in to reap the harvest.

The RA were only there two weeks and moved on, which pleased Uncle no end, and Auntie even more because she had two teenage daughters and you know what soldiers are!

The school had several 鈥渢ownies鈥� in its one classroom 鈥� Mrs Mack the head and only teacher, introduced me to nature study where we went out one afternoon a week to collect twelve different plants. That was the easy bit 鈥� back in class we had to identify and name them all 鈥� my first effort was a disaster 鈥� I knew what a daisy was, I knew what a dandelion was, but I鈥檇 never met plants called meadowsweet, pink campion, white campion and speedwell. The bluebell, which I did know, had had its season by August, and was not available. She also had hanging up a map of the United Kingdom, the first I鈥檇 seen, and when I asked what it was, all the village kids laughed and said it was where we lived. How was I to know, I was only eight and a quarter! The other townies were in the main children of Royal Air Force families who were posted locally to nearby airfields.

In the 1920s, on a foggy day, an RAF plane had collided with one of the chestnut trees that lined the lane to the Bluebell Wood, right opposite Auntie鈥檚 cottage. One of the airmen was dead and lying in the lane, the other alive hanging in the wreckage in the branches. By the time Uncle and other farm hands had got a ladder up to him and gently handled him down, he was at Death鈥檚 door and he sadly died as she tried to clean him up.

The wreck was collected weeks after the RAF Ambulance took the two fliers away but they left the petrol tank in amongst the trees and Uncle eventually put it outside the smithy, near the pile of worn-out horse shoes that lay there 鈥� it must have been there fifteen or sixteen years when I first saw it. Sometime after that when my cousins, both girls, were about twelve and eight probably in 1934 or 1935 an airship of some description perhaps from Cranwell came down behind the barn causing much excitement but happily no injuries.

The rolling hills, gentle though they are there, apparently caused some problems for some pilots, and one morning an Avro Anson twin-engined mono plane landed safely at the edge of Bluebell Wood, and was being guarded by a solitary LAC with a rifle, which he said was okay, but as he hadn鈥檛 any 鈥渁mmo鈥� he might just as well be in the NAAFI, whatever that was 鈥� he didn鈥檛 explain 鈥� I was too overawed with the colossal camouflaged plane to dare ask.

The following day the Anson, and the LAC had gone.

About a week later there was a lot of fighter plane activity. Spitfires with the wing undersides painted one black, one white were milling around and as Harvest was in progress all the hands were in the fields staring upwards 鈥� the general opinion was that they were the 鈥淒awn Patrol鈥� and the wings were designed to baffle Jerry.

Two or three days later, at breakfast, Uncle Arthur said there was a plane down in Top Field adjacent to Bluebell Wood, it had just crashed and the owner of the farm, Mr Good was going to see it, he had just been on to the Police in Grantham on the telephone, and we鈥檇 better keep out of his way. He was not very happy about it.

As I approached Top Field which was growing barley I could see the tail of the plane over the fence, this was an easy one 鈥� it was a North American Harvard Advanced Trainer, camouflaged on top, yellow underneath, wheels still up in the low wing, propeller bent, fence broken about thirty feet, a long swathe where the belly had flattened the crop. The pilot in a sheep skin flying jacket, helmet in hand was standing near the fence he had just broken. I waved and he acknowledged me, but before I could get nearer Mr Good rode up on peacock, his white hunter wearing canvas leggings, no spurs, a tweed jacket, a scarf with a pin and a cloth cap.

He was a big red-faced man with a white moustache, about sixty and the pilot was just about to speak to him as I tried to make myself invisible by walking past the crash. Mr Good鈥檚 voice was terrifying. He said: 鈥榃hat the Hell do you think you are playing at? Don鈥檛 you know there鈥檚 a bloody war going-on! Look at the waste! Look at my fence, young man, look at my bloody fence!鈥�

I looked back, the pilot was in tears, he had just written off a 拢15,000 plane, and a length of fencing and he鈥檇 probably get into trouble when he got back to his aerodrome. I often wonder as I see television presentations whether that young man lived through the coming Battle of Britain, which was only weeks away, whether he was able to say to other RAF 鈥渂ods鈥� in their Mess words like: 鈥淭he worst prang I ever had was in a Harvard in a barley field near Grantham-鈥�

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