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This story was submitted to the People's War site by volunteer from The Chepstow Society on behalf of Annie Elizabeth Jones and has been added to the site with his permission. Annie Elizabeth Jones fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Annie Elizabeth Jones (nee Till)

Home Life.

Annie was born at the Post Office in Beachley. She married Arthur John Jones (known as Jack ) in 1937 and started married life at 10 Upper Sedbury Lane. Her husband was a bus conductor when the war broke out, and later became a driver and then worked at the Red and White Offices. He became involved with the A.R.P. at the start of the war. Their first daughter was born in 1938 at home. Annie became aware of the war after hearing the speech by Chamberlain on the radio, up till then had been so preoccupied with domestic life that she had not been too aware of the possibilities of the outcome of war. In 1941 they moved to Tubular Terrace ( Beachley Road ), where they had a large garden and where they then lived next door but one to her parents. Annie and her husband grew as much vegetables and fruit as possible, as well as keeping chickens. There was much activity in the area of bottling fruit, making jam and 鈥減utting eggs down in waterglass鈥�, so that eggs would be available when the hens were not laying. Jack also kept bees which produced honey and the family were allocated extra sugar for feeding the bees. The parents kept pigs which gave the family access to bacon and pork. Although Annie was aware of the need to be thrifty and careful with the food stocks she felt that there was no desperate food shortages in their family life. However, she was aware of having to be very careful with clothes and much of her time was taken up with knitting and sewing for the family, and making socks and scarfs for the troops. She thinks that the W.R.V.S. must have been responsible for organising the latter activity. Another baby was born in 1944 and Annie had a taxi from Bowen鈥檚 to take her to the hospital at Lydney, where they had to pay to have the baby, she cannot remember how much. The family used to buy fruit and vegetables that they did not grow at Pillanger鈥檚 ( opposite the old Post office ) and Thomas鈥檚 the grocer鈥檚 in St. Mary Street used to call for an order on Tuesday and deliver it on Friday.
The family had a married couple from Folkestone billeted with them during the war; he worked at Dinham while the wife stayed at home. They shared the kitchen together and much of their social life was bound up with each other - - just as well they got on. Contact was kept with them for some time after the war. Much of the social life was centered around the family and neighbours; there were no dances or pictures, but family picnics on the banks of the Severn, near the present Loop Road and at Beachley Point.

School life for first daughter.
In 1943 her daughter Elaine went to Sedbury Army School, and as they were a civilian family had to pay 2/6 a week. She can remember playing hop - scotch; skipping; hoop and stick; leap - frog and playing balls against a wall; also shouting to the Americans for gum.

Wartime defences.
The family did not have a shelter of any sort, though Annie knew of some who did. If there was a threatened air raid they used to hide under the stairs and had to be very careful about blacking out the windows and not showing any light. She was not aware of any local defences. Jack would report for his A.R.P. duties on a regular basis and she seemed to think that he had a navy blue uniform.

Travel and Communications.
Both the parents had bicycles and at one time Jack had a special saddle fixed on his so that their daughter Elaine could go out with them. Travel further afield to places like Newport and Gloucester was done by train or bus. Annie can remember going to Barry for a day trip, she thought that they went by bus to Newport and then by train to Barry. She can remember one trip to Tamworth, where they caught a train from Chepstow to Birmingham and then a connection to Tamworth. What sticks in her mind is that Elaine鈥檚 head came up to the tin hats that the soldiers were carrying on their belts.

War Events.
Has memories of bands parading through Tutshill, probably on a fund raising mission, maybe, even for recruiting early on in the war.

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