大象传媒

This story was gathered at the Bedfordshire County Show and submitted to the People鈥檚 war site by Gillian Ridley for Three Counties Action on behalf of Mr Keith Frank Coleman and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

The local men, to help with the expected food shortage, decided to keep pigs, but the food allocated to them was not nearly enough, some of the food had been partially burnt having being bombed at the docks, small potatoes and peelings would be boiled on the kitchen stove to help feed them.
There were plenty of wild rabbits for us to eat, and plenty of firewood for heat, but no electricity or running water in our area of Buckinghamshire.

We were all asked to recycle material like paper and metal which us children took to school to be collected, we were told to take our aluminium saucepans and kettles to be made into aeroplanes, iron railings were taken from front gardens. We all had gas masks that we were to carry at all times.

By 1941 as we reached the age of eleven, we went to school at Buckingham, we would cycle the four odd miles along our lane flanked by rows of corrigated iron huts filled with munitions of all kinds.

In the sky an aeroplane was always to be found. Aerodromes were being built all over the place and as we cycled to school we could hear aeroplane engines being revved up and machine guns being tested, many planes crashed, mostly trainers.
About eight bombs were dropped within a mile of our house all but one in the fields, the odd one blowing a farmers barn to bits. Us lads would go to the crashed planes and if the guards were not alert we would take any Perspex or bullets or any odd bits we could carry.

The school windows were covered with netting or masking tape criss crossed to stop the glass fling about if a bomb was dropped nearby. Sand bags were stacked along the corridors also to stop the blast. Sometimes the school dinners were not cooked properly as the electricity was sometimes cut off, we had plenty of raw carrots and lots of spinach, as it was grown in the school garden. I remember the semolina pudding because it had little brown-headed weevils in it.
The aeroplanes would fly low overhead making it impossible to hear what the teacher was saying.
There were mainly Bostens and Mitchels flying from the local airfield.
Sometimes instead of lessons we had to go potato picking.

In Buckingham town, and in some of the surrounding roads, holes had been made so it was possible to put Iron girders in to slow the expected enemies advance, there was a gun emplacement in front of what is now Woolworth鈥檚 stores. The old cannon from outside the old gaol was cut up for scrap.

People came from London to live in the villages to get away from the bombing and evacuee children were billeted around.
Land girls came from different parts of the country all speaking in different brogues and dialects.

The aeroplanes continued to fly at night and some people said they could tell if they were German or not, by the sound they made.

We could see the glow in the sky when Coventry was bombed.

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