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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by RICHARD FIELD on behalf of EDDIE BOWES and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

By Eddie Bowes (as related to Richard Field)

I was coming up to my ninth birthday when war was declared. I suppose at the time it did not mean very much to me.
However things changed when the army moved into the area and this quiet rural village, where little very much ever happened, became the centre of great activity which continued for the duration of the war.
The SME (School of Mechanical Engineering) took over land adjoining Newby Hall, and on this site they erected buildings and laid a narrow gauge railway track. They also widened the river (the Ure) to 100 yards across.
The whole site became a training area where the engineers practised building and throwing pontoon bridges across the river, and then they brought up tanks, Bren gun carriers and other heavy vehicles to try them out.
A bit further down, the MOD took over Oxclose Lock, where they trained divers. In the surrounding fields the army trained rig men in the use of horizontal boring machines.
The army personnel were billeted in nearby Park Green and Risley Hall (now demolished) and also in extended army barracks at Ripon. At about the same time RAF Dishforth, Topcliffe and Dalton were all established.

Tanks shook our cottages

Villagers were now left in no doubt that there was a war on, and were reminded of this fact daily as heavy tanks and vehicles thundered through, shaking cottages to their very foundations.
Like everyone else, we were issued with identity cards and my mother had bracelets made for my sister (Dot) and me with our identity numbers engraved on them.
My father and mother were both in the Civil Defence. Mother was in the ARP (Air Raid Precautions) and father was in the AFS (Auxiliary Fire Service). There was also a first-aid group in the village.
The Mechanics Institute was the headquarters for all three services. The first-aid group kept their stretchers and other equipment here, the Fire Service had their hand pump in a three-wheeled trolley in the porch.The ARP used an anti-room for their equipment. It was all a bit like Dad’s Army!
Sandbags were built in front of the doors and windows for protection from bomb blast, while private houses in the village had either netting or tape stuck on them to stop glass shattering. Thank goodness none of these preparations were ever put to the test.
The worst moment for us was on April 15, 1944 when an aeroplane, a Halifax Mk V based at Dishforth, crashed at nearby Park Green, killing all seven air crew.
Sometimes the sirens sounded, and my sister and I used to hide under a grand piano in our front room. Goodness knows what good that would have done if there had been a direct hit!
As for shortages, we didn’t do too badly. Dad grew plenty of vegetables in the garden, and we got extra milk from a farmer he helped with the milking. We also kept a pig which kept us in bacon, ham and pork.
There was a pig club in the village and pig owners put out buckets for pig swill. The buckets bore the message: ‘Feed a pig and beat Hitler’.

Quite a crowd!

My mother took in evacuees. How she managed to house five people in a tiny two-bedroomed house was a mystery but we all got on. I remember the names of the evacuees were Beryl Brushwood and Audrey Garside, both from Leeds. I’m afraid we lost touch with them after the war.
Not far from the village we had a prisoner-of-war camp which was first used by Italians and later by Germans. Some of these men worked on the land helping the local farmers and one or two stayed on, married and still live in this area.
Later in the war, the rumour went round that Churchill was coming to the village. Everyone got very excited looking forward to seeing the great war hero. In fact, we didn’t see him at all. It turned out to be that a Churchill tank was passing through on its way to the bridging site!
So, even in those dark days, we still had a few laughs!

END

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