大象传媒

For the first part of this story see 鈥淏rian Limbrick鈥檚 Wartime childhood 1938 to 1941鈥�
(reference A6336407).
This story A6336641 is submitted by The British Schools Museum, Hitchin with Brian Limbrick鈥檚 permission.

1942: American troops began to appear and we all joined in the "Got any gum chum" chorus. It was good having such a jolly lot on the buses and they used to join in with us singing our times tables on the way home. Some used to come to dances in our village hall. We used to peek through the curtains at the jitterbugging of which they were the masters. They would throw the girls all over the place but somehow they always landed on their feet.

We all listened to Tommy Handley in ITMA (It's That Man Again) and repeated the jokes at school in the morning. It was a superb morale booster now I look back. I could still get Deutschlandsender on my radio and could pick up "Lord Haw Haw" (William Joyce the traitor). One night he announced that Luton was to be bombed so we spent that night under the stairs among the sacks of potatoes - and Luton was bombed.

1943: One of Mrs.Pilkington's sons from Little Offley House was killed when his bomber crashed in Suffolk (I think) he was brought home to be buried. Everyone went to church and I pumped the organ (electric organ pumps in churches were rare then), I was very near the coffin which had his flying cap on top among the flowers. We sang John Bunyan's hymn "To be a Pilgrim" and then followed him down the churchyard. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Pilkington's husband died and everyone grieved for her. Later that year she lost another son in North Africa. We thought that was terrible. She had two other sons, one was a prisoner of war in Germany and another came through. The war caught everyone, rich and poor alike.

My brother, then aged about 6 years, played soldiers with his friends continuously. One day he and I with our mother were walking towards Lower Offley when an army car came up the road. My brother, who as usual was kitted out with a wooden rifle, toy tin hat and a rolled-up sack on his back to resemble a soldier's back pack, knelt down and took aim at the car. To his amazement it stopped and three army officers got out with their hands in the air. Brother was nonplussed and soon everyone was laughing, the officers shook his hand and told him that they hoped one day to see him in the Army.

I changed schools that year and still the war raged on. National Savings was a great priority and since I helped out on a farm, usually at harvest time, I was called on to save more. I think that I only got 30/- a week.

Between the Blitz and the Doodlebugs things got quieter on the home front and now my mother and I would sometimes go to London by train and shop. If we could get seats we would go to a theatre matinee, I remember seeing Tommy Trinder in "Happy and Glorious" at the London Palladium. We saw some good shows all of which had highly singable songs and we used to sing on the train home. At school we were one morning in assembly when the deputy head marched through us and gave our really tough headmaster a slip of paper. It was a cruel and wicked thing to do because it was the telegram saying that his only son had been killed in North Africa. He broke down in front of us and cried, we were devastated at the sight of this powerful man in tears, I have never forgotten it, and neither have my school chums.

During this period we had French Canadians on manoeuvres around the village and they had to live off the land, which meant us! They took everything they could lay hands on, chickens, even a pig and lots of fruit. They captured hedgehogs, wrapped them in clay and baked them so that the skin and spines came away with the clay. They were the roughest, toughest lot I ever saw during the war. The officers, I believe, were charming but we were a long time recovering, I think that it was then that we learned to lock our doors.

The Italian campaign worried us because we had Italian family (my great aunt married an Italian in 1891) and we followed it avidly but it was a long time before Alassio was reached. We had a searchlight camp on the Kings Walden Road and when this shut down it became an Italian prisoner-of-war camp. We never actually viewed the Italians as total enemies because, I suppose, they had been our allies in WW1 but we loathed Mussolini because he had stabbed France in the back. I seem to remember that most of them were Sicilians of a most jovial disposition. They were very friendly and not averse to spreading their Maker's image so the population rose. My father recounted seeing some of their lady friends on the road to the camp with cycle lamps on their prams.

Rationing was stringent and luxury goods unobtainable. I remember my mother meeting a friend in Hitchin and the lady asked her if she liked her new coat that she had made from a blanket: everything was make do and mend then. We all had hand-me-downs, one farmer's wife offered my mother some of her son's cast offs for me and then asked her an exorbitant sum of money which my mother refused to pay. Not everyone was hard hearted and I can only recall those around me being kind and generous. The District Nurse had one of the few cars so there was always a lift to hospital in an emergency, she too was a good kind soul and we were all very fond of her.

1944: Although the war was going better the V1 Flying Bombs (Doodlebugs) and V2 rockets gave us a terrible time. If you heard the 'bugs stop-start engines in the night you prayed that they wouldn't stop because then they would glide down and explode an impact. There was absolutely no warning from the V2 rockets which were greatly feared. One fell near my aunt and uncle's house in Watford and my father picked up the news at the police station. Though injured they survived but lost many of their neighbours who we knew. Two had been in my mother's class at school before WWl. I saw a lot of 'bugs going over on their way to the Midlands. A rocket fell near a hat factory in Luton and killed lots of woman and some of our villagers went to the funerals because the hat trade was a big employer and some villagers worked in the factories.

One day we sat in school and there was a huge crrrummp and our dinner money fell off the teacher's desk - This was in the morning and we had no idea what had happened but in the afternoon found that no buses were running to Luton via Offley. About six of us started walking the three and a half miles and then met Will Dyer, a lame survivor of the Boer War, walking to Hitchin who told us that Offley had been blown up by bombs. In a panic we ran all the way home to find the village intact but an American army lorry loaded with bombs had collided with a petrol tanker about half a mile further on at Offley Mill. The drivers ran all over the place warning everyone they could to take cover and luckily no locals were killed but sadly and ironically a 'bus did not stop for one of the drivers who lay down on the road and of course started to turn round too late and the driver and a number of American service personnel on the top deck were killed. Offley Mill was almost flattened but all the houses were eventually restored and the nearby farm which was totally demolished was entirely rebuilt. The American Forces were generous compensators. A week later our front bedroom ceiling fell down as did others in the village. The Chapel lost all its south facing windows.

Later one morning I lay in bed and heard a large aircraft droning and circling round and round. It was foggy and thought it must be in trouble. Soon there was a loud bump, a great crash and then ammunitions began exploding I shouted down to my dad who was up that something had happened. Then Nellie Cannon came running up the road shouting for my dad saying that West End Farm was on fire. A Lancaster bomber attempted to land, crashed through the trees over Eagles Nest House, bounced on a field and slammed straight into West End Farm House. The farmer and his sons were milking in the cow sheds and escaped but Mrs. Handley and her two daughters were killed. A bit of the burning house stood for a while and one of the sons got to his sister's bedroom window with a wet sack over his head. They had got out of bed but were nowhere to be seen. Later all three were found in the cellar. The crew were all killed. No one went to work and we were all there to see if we could help and a lot of people tore at the hot bricks; so many tears were shed. Our house was the centre of operations with the telephone and I was given the job of manning it. It was awful when friends rang to enquire after the family. So off we went to another funeral, this time a really big one. I sang in the choir and there was a line of coffins all the way through the church. Again we sang "He who would true valour see". I saw both Miss Elsie (on leave from the ATS) and Miss Mary Handley the day before they died. Mary Handley rode on the 'bus with me to Hitchin and we discussed music and history. I still sometimes walk in Great Offley churchyard where so many of my friends lay.

1945: The war gradually drew to a close, but the Germans prolonged it as long as they could which made us all angry because of the constant slaughter. On VE night Offley had a huge bonfire on Green Hill overlooking Hitchin, which was seen as far away as Stotfold. The piano was dragged out of The Cock 'pub and some danced in the street. Oh the relief, no more bugs or rockets. I can remember my mother saying that we should think of the grieving families of those who would not come home. It was a very thoughtful time.

I have written these recollections in the full knowledge that I will remember many more as time passes. I thank God most heartily for preserving me and all those around me in those difficult times and I remember my dear parents who sustained me and cared for me.

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