大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Radio Northampton Action Desk on behalf of Doreen M. Holmes and has been added to the site with her permission. Doreen M. Holmes fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

It was the summer of 1940. I was eight years old. My Mum and Dad and we, their four children had been in Coventry when the Second World War started and most children were evacuated but Mum was reticent to let us go. My parents were Salvation Army Officers and the hierarchy of that organization very kindly appointed them to the small country Market Town of Rothwell in Northamptonshire, thus enabling us to remain together. I know my parents were very grateful for their thoughtfulness.

It was great fun for us as children. When we arrived we found a long garden - a total wilderness in which we were able to play hide and seek, though not for long, for within weeks Dad had turned it into a dig-for-victory area to feed the family, lots of vegetables, a small top lawn for Ronald, Richard, Grace and Doreen to play on, and at the bottom, hens and what I remember to be a vicious cockerel which chased you every time you went to collect the eggs from the nests. Eventually only Dad could cope with it and he wore Wellingtons to protect his legs. Alas for the cockerel, it became our Christmas lunch eventually!

Incidentally our neighbour reared a pig and I remember running upstairs and hiding on the day it was to be slaughtered by shooting, not daring to see it.

One day Ronald had been playing in the nearby park known as 鈥淭he Mounts鈥� because of the ups and downs in the grass, and brought home his 鈥渘ew pet鈥�. It was a grass snake and was ensnared under the garden sieve to prevent its escape. I have always hated snakes, slugs, worms etc - anything without legs in fact. Imagine therefore my horror when the next morning this slimy slithery creature had escaped. I know now of course that my father had set it free, but then that was a secret.

We all had to take turns in doing chores to earn our weekly 2 pence pocket money, one of which was to fill the coal scuttle in the coal house. 鈥淥 NO, NOT ME!! Not any more!鈥� Nothing would induce me to set foot near that place where that snake was bound to be hiding. I would clean the brass door knobs every week rather than that.

Dad had also dug an air-raid shelter behind the coal house; six foot down, covered with corrugated iron. Never again would I enter that dark, dank, worm-filled and now maybe snake-filled place. The very thought of entering that terrifying dungeon filled me with fear and foreboding.

On the night Coventry City was blitzed, the planes flew high over our small town. We got to recognise the throbbing engine sound of the German planes which were different from 鈥渙urs鈥�. Everyone must go down into the 鈥渄ug-out鈥�. 鈥淥 no - not me!鈥� I was much more afraid of that grass snake than the German Bombers, so my Mum and I slept under the dining room table. What a relief for me, but I was too young to realise that I was putting my mother in danger too, and she did not complain.

How blessed we were to have such loving, caring and thoughtful parents. Only years later did I realise that they must have often gone without their 鈥渞ations鈥� so that we would have sufficient. In retrospect I can say that I never felt deprived, it was just a way of life, but looking back I鈥檓 sure my parents, especially my mother must have done so to give to us.

Incidentally, my fear of snakes has never diminished, I still can鈥檛 bear to look at them, even on the television!

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