大象传媒

Recollections of wartime.
In 1939 we our family went to holiday in Essex in the July, we never returned to East London.
My father located a country cottage for rent and we moved into it in early 1940, Not the idyllic
country cottage of our times but a very basic model which had been empty for some 30 or so
years.Three rooms donwstairs and two up with NO mod cons, we shared THE tap with the man
next door and internal water was carried in a 2 1/2 gallon wqtering can, stored in the "kitchen".
Cooking was conducted on the open fire and 2 paraffin heaters with the luxury of an oven at the
side of the fire. This was handy during the winter as we used to put two house bricks in there
to heat up and, wrapped in old jerseys, they did service as hot water bottles; no rubber ones
as there was a war on remember. The toilet arrangements bear a mention as they were
a small wooden hut containing a zinc bucket and a flat piece of wood with a strategically
located hole. Pretty basic but we did grow wonderful potatoes. The downstairs fireplace
was vast or had been until about 5 feet each side had been bricked in and I could imagine the
original occupants having seats around the fire in a lovely ingle nook. It was 4 feet wide when
we were there and contained, as mentioned, the oven plus a cooking hob. With a large flat
space at each side and behind it was where we stored logs to dry out. The chimney was
similarly huge and tapered from the base to a chimney pot at the top. About 7 feet up there
was a flitch rail so that you could smoke your bacon. It was impervious to
sweeping brushes and the sweeping method was a 12bore shotgun, noisy and messy but
very effective

The cottage was a mile from the village and was situated on a double bend amongst a small
hamlet of 10 houses/cottages with an open expanse of green opposite to our cottage. At an
early part of 1940 we had a light ack ack gun on the green and that was pretty frightening at
night for a five year old but humans get used to things and really it was only a lot of noise
without much chance of success. Later on in the year the barrage was extended but a few
hundred yards away which was a mercy, plus, they installed searchlights. I came to realise
when I was older that they were all part of an integrated set-up to help protect the many airfields
which surrounded us. One of these was North Weald fighter station and most of the others were
satellite landing strips good for up to 4 aircraft. These were helping to protect the Bryant and
factory at Bishops Stortford where they made the explosive for the shells which were produced
down the road at Enfield. Transportation was carried out by barge and the canal was regularly
dredged so it becamc a magnet for aspiring olympic swimmers, no swimming pools of course.
Towards the end of the war we used to get some of the young airmen along and they helped us
to learn water safety and basic survival. Naturally, this attracted some of the village damsels
as the home grown youn men were away at war and there were some marriages and several
emigrants when the was was over.

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