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This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Maddy Rhodes a volunteer with Radio Suffolk, on behalf of Mike Riches who has given permission for it to be submitted.Mike Riches fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

When I was a young lad my father had a smallholding at Foxhall, on the outskirts of Ipswich. He worked the land with a British Anzani iron horse tractor, which was walked behind steering by two handles and independent brakes. Sometimes it was difficult to keep in a straight line and was heavy work. He grew vegetables — spinach, outdoor tomatoes, and lettuce, radish and root crops and vegetable plants. It was essential work during the war years, to grow as much food as possible on home soil.
I was often taken to help on the smallholding. My job was to walk in front of the tractor, and to keep a look out for anything out of the ordinary. A hollow in the ground could mean an unexpected bomb or pieces of debris — maybe an incendiary or other explosive.
I had many a harsh word for stopping dad for no good reason, but at 5 or 6 years old, I was hardly aware of what was unusual! One day we did find an incendiary device, which was about 2 foot long and 3 to 4 inches wide, with an aluminium body and with green painted fins of metal. I think we moved it out of the way and Dad contacted someone to collect it or destroy it.
A lot of what we grew was taken to the British Restaurant in St. Peter’s Street. You could get a good meal there for a modest amount of money. The British Restaurants were set up all over the country. It was a good way of providing large numbers of people with nutritious meals at low cost. Dockets were used which looked like money and the same size; different ones were valid for different items, depending on what food was chosen.
We were always alert to the sound of aircraft engines. The smallholding looked out over ploughed or corn fields with Rushmere Heath nearby. Several times Dad told me to close all the shed doors, pigsties, etc. as fast as possible when enemy aircraft were seen across these fields. We then used a Morrison shelter in one of the buildings until potential danger had passed.
We lived in a small semi-detached house with a single story kitchen, toilet and coal shed extending out of the back of the house. We had an Anderson steel shelter dug into the ground halfway along our long garden. Everything that could be eaten was grown in this garden plus a few flowers.
On one night of air raids an incendiary bomb case, one which would have contained a number of them, fell onto our kitchen and took guttering and slates down near our back door where we would have come from the house to get to our shelter. Several men came and took it away.
At St. John‘s C. of E. school in Cauldwell Hall Road, Ipswich we had air raid shelters under the playground, with several entrance doors, and with ramp-like structure behind this — steps went down to the long corridor-like tunnels with seats on both sides. We also had square tins that contained hard biscuits as emergency rations. Mock air raid warnings were practiced from time to time. The school was demolished many years ago.

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