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53 - Tom and Vera Cooper talk about their war.
Vera was born in 1930, and went to Shrubland Street School in Leamington Spa.
She remembers the Coventry Blitz: "I do, a lot. My grandfather was a captain in the Home Guard, there he is, there’s a photograph, that was when he was in the First World War. That was the First World War, and that was when he was Captain in the Home Guard.

Yes, well I mean … I remember when sometimes they missed Coventry and they hit Leamington. We had got a cellar underneath our house, and we used to go down there. And this one particular night with no warning, and we were sat in the living room and a landmine dropped just behind our house at the back, and you know what a landmine is like, it absolutely demolished the close where it was, but the blast from that, it blew the windows in; I mean the glass didn’t fly because you had got all the pieces of sticky paper over it, but it blew the windows in, and my aunty, an old …, well she wasn’t actually an aunty, she was a cook where my mom used to work, and she came and lived with us when she retired. The blast picked her up and she rolled, she was a big fat woman and she rolled all along the floor, it was horrible, very frightening, very frightening.
But you get over these things, they make such a fuss about it these days, they do.

We didn't lose many of our teachers, no because most of them were women, most of them …, yes they all women I think, yes they were. There was only Mr. Gradwell and he was getting on, he was getting on, he was a bit too old for that. He was nice, he was a nice man. No they were all women, they were all women there."

[Tom Cooper now speaks, he was born in Northend..] "At the other side of the village, but I have more or less lived all my life except when I was away in the army, and when we first got married and lived in Leamington.

I was nine when the War started - I can remember seeing all the bombing of Coventry and all those sort of things. Of course being out in the country here, we didn’t suffer.
This camp here, they started that in ’42, it was agricultural land until then. It was made into an army camp for ammunition; they all used to come past the bottom of the village here on the railway line, or it used to go down to Wales the other way, ‘cos that’s the line that used to run through Stratford on Avon.
It used to stop at Fenny Compton. Well when friends of ours started school, we were there at the same time, they used to go by train to Leamington College every day.

After going to school in the village I went working for the local shop which used to do deliveries around. And then I went and worked at the garage at Kineton, and from there I went in the army. I was posted to England all the time! As a matter of fact, most of the time was served at Brackley, just in the border of Northants.
I did learn to drive though.

We were a lot better off in those days really for transport, and everybody used it then, but you see people started buying cars, and they stopped … Well a lot of people bought cars because the transport was non existent really; you won’t get them out of their cars again now, it’s too convenient.

(During the War) we used to knit socks; it’s funny we used to knit socks and they used to send them away for the forces, and I had a letter come from a soldier thanking me for the socks, and he was the father of one of the girls I was at school with, amazing, amazing it was. I still see his daughter, we go to the old girls’ reunion, Rosemary, yes.

We didn't have evacuees, we had war workers, we had war workers we did because they worked at the Lockheed making munitions, we had two war workers billeted on us; they were lovely, they were lovely.
(Two girls)
One came from Yorkshire, and the other one came from Edinburgh.
Oh yes (we kept in touch)- not so much Janet the one in Edinburgh, Clara went up to stay with them after she went back home after the war, that was my sister, but I went mostly to Yorkshire and we kept in touch with Annie as well for a long time, until she died in fact.

(Tom remembers some evacuees) - there were quite a few in the village, and the evacuees used to up to this school in Northend, and they used to have to walk from where the camp is to the farms down there, which would be two to three miles. Then there were some billeted on the hills with the farmers there, and then there used to be an old cart, horse and cart, like a covered wagon, used to bring the children from Knightcote, ‘cos they used to come to our school in Northend as well. When I was at school they were in Northend School, was for Knightcote and all surrounding areas. They came mainly from Stoke, in Coventry, and there was quite an influx after the Coventry Blitz: there was two batches. Actually some relations came to …, they came to stay with us after the Coventry blitz because their father was killed in the blitz, he was a fireman, and they came and stayed with us for a little while.

(Vera now speaks) Initially the evacuees were brought to Leamington and the surroundings, but that’s how I came to tell you about running errands between schools, because they used the schools where they were. And then they were shipped out, only like for a fortnight in Leamington really, while the bad blitz was on. And then they were shipped out to different places, that’s where they came out here you see.
Well we did, as youngsters, take messages round. I mean we couldn’t go to school so we might just as well do that. They asked all the Guides and the Scouts if they were willing to do it, and we all said yes and that was it. So we were all on bikes, and we used to go backwards and forwards to different schools, because some families got split up and some were in one school and some were in another, and I went taking messages from one school to another - no telephones in those days. I mean we didn’t have a telephone until my eldest son was out at work doing roofing, it was his own job, his own business like, and he needed a telephone for business so he had it put in.

And I mean we used to walk everywhere in those days, that’s the point you knew where you were going, yes, knew where all the schools where, and because I had got friends at all different schools. You see I went to the Grammar School and some of them went to Clapham Terrace, and some of them went to the one at the top of the town and then some paid to go to a private school, some of them went to Warwick, it all depended which school you put down, where you wanted to go.
As a Guide I was attached to Shrubbery Street School, yes I was, because I lived in that area. And I used to have to go to Shrubbery Street School, it was only for a matter of a fortnight while the heavy blitz was on, because they couldn’t keep the schools closed for ever you see so it was only for a matter of about a fortnight and it was quite interesting and quite exciting really. I mean some children had lost their parents you see and they had to be fed and washed and clothed, so we used to help with that, wash babies, one thing and another at 11 years of age.

(Tom speaks0 It was a novelty really for being a child, it was a novelty, it was quite good.
But I mean it depends what sort of attitude you have got about these sort of things. Some people wouldn’t care two hoots they wouldn’t do it, but I enjoyed it.

My father was a butcher, he was a butcher. Unfortunately he was born with a faulty heart and they wouldn’t accept him in the forces. He tried 'em all, tried 'em all but he used to go out with the Home Guard, every night he was off out with the Home Guard. But saying that, I mean he was in a reserved occupation as well, so many butchers were kept behind so it freed up somebody that was able bodied to go.
But saying that, his butchers shop was in Warwick, Smith Street. Well you know what Smith Street’s like? Well his butchers shop was at the top and there was another butchers shop at the bottom; if he was at home having his lunch and they came with a delivery of meat, they used to leave it at the bottom shop, so he used to have to carry all the meat on his back all the way up Smith Street to the shop, and it wasn’t very good for him, having a bad heart! He died very young, he was only 48 when he died; he died just after I had had my first child. She was six weeks old when he …, I think he came out of hospital just so that he could hold her.

(Vera) My mom, well she used to do a lot of work with the British Legion. I remember going into the British Legion with her right from a toddler really, ‘cos that came from my granddad, he was in the British Legion."

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