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Eileen and Ron were married in 1940 and these are some of their memories of wartime.

In 1940 when the formation of the Local Defence Volunteers was announced Ron rushed straight to Sandiacre Police Station and signed up. He was an engineer at The Stanton Iron Works which had been turned over to the manufacturer of munitions, bomb casings etc. and so was in a reserved occupation. To begin with the L.D.V. possessed no weapons or uniforms but paraded wearing arm bands in typical Dad’s Army style. Later through the offices of American friends, rifles were sent from California. Unfortunately they were of a different bore from the British rifles and so were useless until eventually the Americans provided the correct ammunition. Rifle practice took place at Rispley where targets were erected at Golden Brook and there too Eileen learned how to shoot. Ron said he thought it would be a good idea and she became a good shot in spite of the heavy weight of the rifles.

Ron remembers patrolling on No Man’s lane on Tuesday nights, particularly one night in June. He arrived home in the early hours smelling very unpleasant having crawled through numerous cow-pats in the dark fields searching for German paratrooper! After all that, it turned out to be a false alarm, nothing more than a barrage balloon which had come adrift.

A few bombs fell in the area. Stanton was a target as were nearby power stations. Eileen remembers the large naval gun positioned at Ockbrook being fired at German bombers. She sat in the pantry catching the pots as they jumped towards the edges of the shelves with each reverberation. She can’t remember actually getting under the bed, but there she was one night, with plaster raining down from the ceiling and the curtains blowing straight out of the open windows. Many houses had windows smashed if they hadn’t been opened and apparently that night a number of cows were killed.

Ron’s father was first on the scene of a crashed British Stirling Bomber, which exploded killing the crew. Everyone had tin hats to wear during raids and Ron still recalls the sound of shrapnel hitting his helmit when a bomb landed in the middle of the road at Risley. People learned to distinguish the sounds of the different aircraft and sometimes could even see the black crosses on the wings of the German planes as they appeared from the clouds looking for Stanton or Rolls Royce. Eileen watched a dogfight take place over the old Trent Station and saw the glass roof shatter as it was hit by shrapnel.

Ron remained in the Home Guard throughout the war while working long hours at Stanton sometimes being unable to come home for forty-eight hours at a stretch. This was a fact if life during the war; those in reserved occupations frequently worked long hours in addition to their Civilian Defence activities, fire watching, Home Guard, A.R.P., W.V.S. and Special Constabulary. Many people grew much of their own food too. Ron and Eileen say they were lucky compared to inhabitants of cities like Birmingham and Coventry. On patrol high up on No Man’s Lane Ron saw the red glow in the sky and heard the bombing when those cities were blitzed.

On principle Eileen’s father refused to allow a ‘white wedding’ believing it to be inappropriate during wartime, but she did have a new dress and all the usual accessories. She remembers the shoes cost £3 10s 0d a week’s wage for many people in 1940. Food rationing hadn’t really begun so the reception wasn’t a problem, but the war effort at Stanton could not be halted for a honeymoon! In fact Ron had been quite ill the week before the wedding and Eileen wasn’t sure until the last minute that he would make it to the church!

In the end the doctor managed to ensure Ron’s appearance but the night at a hotel had to be cancelled; it was straight to the new home to be cosseted by a warm fire. As the previous owners had only just vacated the house nothing was ready and the blackout wasn’t adequate so that was the first thing to be sorted out. Nothing was unpacked and Eileen could only find one or two basins when the milkman arrived with his churn and scoop in the morning. They did have some furniture. Eileen’s mother remembered the First World War and advised them to buy furniture as soon as they were engaged and store it. She knew that when the war began there would be no good furniture made. She was well stocked up with tinned food by 1939; a very far-sighted lady!

By 1944 everything was rationed so when a baby arrived it was difficult to procure even the essentials. One day in Derby with her mother, Eileen spotted a young woman carrying what she recognised as a sort of ersatz baby bath. It was made of papier mache and coated with some waterproof substance. Eileen ran up to him ‘Where did you find that?’ she asked and on being told ran to the shop and bought the last one. Cod liver oil, rose-hip syrup and orange juice (which bore little resemblance to the real thing) were available, but there were no canned baby foods. If possible Eileen would buy a marrowbone from the butcher, simmer it for ages and combine the resultant liquor with sieved home-grown vegetables. A friend lent them a pre-war Silver Cross pram which had to be re-conditioned using rexine, the leather substitute. Later Ron made a push-chair himself there being none in the shops.

A lean-to greenhouse in which tomatoes were grown was constructed against the coalhouse. The tomatoes were bottled in 2ld jam-jars when kilner jars weren’t available. Eileen remembers bottling fifty two jars of tomatoes, one for each week of a year and they ended up being stored under the bed and in odd corners all over the house. They made elderberry-wine, one lot which blew up splattering elderberry juice all over the pantry. They kept fowls for eggs and a neighbour reared pigs which were fed on everyone’s scraps, so when a pig was killed all contributors received a portion. That was something to look forward to, a good addition to the usual boring rations.

Travelling was hazardous at night as everywhere was in complete darkness; no street lamps or light from windows. Torches and bicycle lamps had to be hooded to show only the tiniest pencil of light on the ground. Ron said they were always bumping into things or other people. He had laid up his car since petrol couldn’t be bought so travel to Nottingham or Derby was by bus and the last one left the city at 9pm. If you missed it, you walked and they did just that more than once. One evening they were expecting friends to visit, but the friends knocked at a door three houses away being confused in the dark. The door was opened briefly and they were dragged inside quickly because you couldn’t show a light, only to discover they were complete strangers. Sometimes Eileen used a local train from Sandiacre to Long Eaton when visiting her parents and the guard would allow her to ride in his van with the baby in her pram.

During the war letters were received from friends abroad in the forces but of course these were censored. They were also photocopied and reduced in size so as to take up less space in transit.

Ron’s favourite recipe rounds off these memories; American Spam came in a tin with a thick layer of fat on the top. With this Eileen would make a raised port pie, a real treat and a change from the usual meat ration.

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