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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Eileen Cosby. She fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

THE VILLAGE LIFE OF EILEEN COSBY.

It was in 1925 that my first most memorable events occurred – I went to School in Knighton Village at the age of five and we moved into our first Council house. During the following eight years the family increased with the birth of a brother Robert and sister and we moved to the village of Countesthorpe in August in 1933.

It was there that my parents had rented a house with land for a market garden called the Vineries and, at that time, I was attending a Secondary Modern School in Leicester. Although they wanted me to stay there, the family could not afford the cost of my travel to Leicester. I left and attended the village school for just six months until I was fourteen years old. We all worked very hard on the land and life was both interesting and exciting. With the gardens situated alongside the railway embankment, we were the original Railway Children; running to the fence when a train approached, waving frantically to the driver and passengers with satisfying pleasure when they waved back.

My parents had only been at the Vineries for 18 months when they had to move. The landlord had put the land on the market and they could not afford to buy it. This was a very sad blow to us all, we had lived and toiled happily on that land, producing for the community and then it was no more.

When I left school at fourteen I helped on the garden and in the house. It was at this time that mother was expecting another baby and sister Margaret was born. For me, being very fond of children and babies, this was a blessing and I stayed at home for the next year helping. A job was then found for me in a large house in Leicester where I assisted a professional Nanny looking after three children. I was well looked after, we had maids and other staff and I gained lots of experience; I really enjoyed working there.

I was there about a year and a half during which time the older of the three children had gone to boarding school; the others were growing up and I so much wanted to look after a baby again. Fortunately a neighbour had a new baby and I moved to that home with the sole responsibility for looking after that baby. I was seventeen and a half and stayed there for a year before moving on to another family. This time I was resident in the village of Kibworth with a family where the husband was a Shoe Designer and the wife was an Editor of a London Magazine and she travelled there each day to work. By now I was a much experienced Nanny and very proud of it.

The year was 1939 and, in September, the news of our involvement in War was received with shock and dismay. I was in the nursery dusting chairs when I heard this sombre voice on the radio saying,"we are now at war with Germany". We were all quite stunned and talked about it but at that time the feeling was more of excitement rather than fear. We knew that things would have to change with the young men of the Village going off to War and the atmosphere was charged with a strong feeling of patriotism.

Many associations held meetings in the village where all the top people got together to decide what must be done. I think, especially our age group, we imagined that very soon Germans would come marching up the road or something like that. However, because it had not been so long since the last War, our parents knew exactly what it was all about, but we did not have a clue. It came to us gradually that we had to take part in different things; it was very exciting learning to cope with all the extra problems we knew very little about.

We had no car in those days and, whilst working at Kibworth, I cycled home once a week to see the family. I had a boyfriend, my future husband Cyril, who regularly came to see me and would cycle back with me on my day off. He would return home to Countesthorpe in the dark with a dim masked cycle lamp as was the regulation at that time. On one occasion, cycling merrily through Wistow Park, unaware that his lamp had gone out, a Policeman jumped out from behind a tree and stopped him. He was fined ten shillings for cycling without lights.

It was Xmas 1940 when we were married in St. Andrews Church Countesthorpe. It was a wonderful event, though not exactly the wedding of the year as the war had taken it's toll and we were short of everything. Even the two prospective candidates for best man were missing; somewhere over there in the shambles of the German drive across France and the evacuation of Dunkirk. Eventually my brother Bob stepped into the breach as best man and saved the day. I can't remember if rationing had already been imposed but conventional wedding clothes were not available and people had to club together to produce some sort of reception. My husband came from a farming family so we took up farming with a small dairy herd and pigs.

Having learned how to cope with the blackout, the shortages and the problems of everyday living, the War as such was almost forgotten; nothing appeared to be happening over there. Suddenly, the voice on the radio was blurting out news of a German breakthrough in Belgium and the Blitzkrieg push towards the coast. We all knew of friends from the Village who were over there but no information was available about any of them. Almost within days the Germans were pounding the coastal area around Dunkirk and there were rumours of a frantic evacuation. None of the local lads had arrived home and we wondered what was going on. It was eventually announced that almost quarter of a million troops had been evacuated. What a great relief that was but with it came the doubts and dread of what would happen next; would they trample all over us as they did in Belgium ?

That dreadful situation brought back to me an event in 1933 at school in Leicester when I was about thirteen. A group of young teenage German children came to Leicester on a school visit and we were given the task of guiding them around the City. At first this was very exciting until we realised they were not really interested in the things we would have expected. They were more arrogant and street wise than us and spent most of the time taking pictures of large buildings and making notes of what went on there. They knew what they wanted to do and we could not turn them away from it; we would much rather have taken them for a romp around Bradgate Park. This was around 1933 and we did not realise then that this was part of their preparation for war, with parties of children visiting cities all over Britain.

Farming in Leicestershire was generally grazing for cattle and sheep but now, at War, the country needed grain and we were instructed to plough most of our land and plant corn. This was a new form of farming to us and we had much to learn with the necessity to obtain other equipment and skills. Much of our work had been done using horses for general cartage and turning hay etc., but now we had a tractor which I believe was the first in the district; other equipment was shared between the surrounding farms in the area.

There were five farms in the village and all had a few cows and a pig or two in a sty. Almost anyone who had a piece of land and a shed had a pig at the bottom of the garden. With our horse and cart we collected waste from the Wigston Barracks and that was the feed for our pigs. It was a time of compromise and we all worked hard to find a source of supply. I also used the cart to daily deliver milk around the village for a number of years until milk was rationed. When and why this was rationed I am not sure but it was probably because of the limited amount of grazing land; having all been turned over to plant grain.

It did not take long for the bureaucrats to bring out forms to fill in and that went very much against the grain; nobody wanted to do that. Then a man from the Ministry would turn up and that was dreadful, we showed him the gate more often than not. They came to count the animals to make sure you were not bumping one or two off when you should not have done, everyone was not into the Black Market as some people imagined. It must have been quite difficult for Officials to keep a check on animals because anyone could keep a pig and were allowed to kill one or maybe two a year. It was very easy to put another one in and then half the village would have pork for a week.

There was not the hard life for many living in the country compared to the city. I am sure there were not many who did not know what to do with the offal, making pies, puddings and sausages. I remember mother used to go round the Village and show people how to salt and process. So, which ever way you look at it, we were all involved in some way or other in the so called Black Market; that was just village life really.

I lost my brother Bob in the War. He was killed in a crash in 1943 whilst training another Pilot. He had joined the RAF even though he was exempt because of working on the land. He wished to be identified with all the other men in the village who had gone and did not wish to be left out of the action. He was sent to America and Canada to be trained as a pilot and, when he returned to this country, he became a trainer on Spitfires. In those days there were no dual controls and the instructor was entirely at the mercy of his trainee. My son was born the week after Bob was killed; it was a very sad time for all the family.

Enemy planes passed frequently over the area and we learned to recognise friend from foe by the drone of the engines. They were usually on their way to Coventry and we witnessed minutes later the flash of bombs and flames of burning buildings. However we did have our share one night when a string of bombs dropped on the village and houses on Poplar Avenue and Willoughby Road were damaged. It was on this night that my husband Cyril and a companion, old Bill Lea who was very deaf, went on Home Guard duty in a hut at the top end of Foston Road. Because Cyril had just finished a day's hard work, it was agreed that Bill stand guard whilst he had a sleep. Next morning, at the Green Lane guard Depot, they reported a quiet night completely unaware of the nights bombing; poor old Bill had heard nothing.

We had heard the news and seen the pictures of the horrific bombing during the Blitz in London and realised just how fortunate we were living here in a country village. There were evacuees here in the village from London and Coventry, families and individual children, and we did our bit in that way. I had a mother and two children but they did not stay very long, we had the space at that time and they lived with us on the farm.

It was during 1940 that the WRVS was formed and I joined them. We were involved in such things as how to set up a Field Kitchen, make Hay Boxes, how to make and light a stove if you had no electricity and all those necessary things. I continued to work on the farm, delivering the milk, helping to turn the hay, plant and harvest the corn, all without the modern equipment they have today. We had horses, carts and a binder but the stooking and stacking all had to be done by hand. My husband used to fetch gangs of ATS girls from the barracks at Wigston to come and help. For them it was a change from barrack life, they would bring their beer and things and have a really good time helping the war effort. We also had two German POWs to assist us, delivered and collected daily at the farm from a camp at Evington and worked with us for quite a long time. They were very hard workers. One was a much older man with quite a pleasant nature; he would play with the children and make them toys and things but the other one was a younger man, a very arrogant real Nazi who wouldn't talk to us, nor would he eat with us at meal times.

The end of the War, announced on the wireless and in the papers, was such a relief. It was quite wonderful to know that no one else was going to be battered. It was also a traumatic feeling, especially for those families who had lost someone, for my parents who had lost a son and I a brother. It was a period of time in our life that would never go away but, like everyone else, we celebrated with street parties and all sorts of events. It was not easy to arrange a party on food rationing but the spirit of unity, born of War, was there and everyone put in what they could.

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