大象传媒

It has to be remembered that I was three when the war started and although these memories are vivid to me, they must have lost and gained details over the intervening years! I tell them as I remember them and I still shudder and go cold if I hear a siren, as I did every day at work at one time. I can only imagine with sympathy the effect on people who were badly affected.

We lived at Hollydene 7, High Street, a farm and butchers (bought by my parents from the Pennyman estate when it was sold up) where a supermarket is now. My father鈥檚 family had farmed and been the village butchers here for generations. One day I was walking up the fields opposite the house (where Henry Taylor Court is now) and a German plane, streaming smoke flew over very low. My brother pushed me under a big overhanging hedge saying 鈥淒on鈥檛 look, don鈥檛 look!鈥� Of course I did look over his shoulder and saw the crosses on the wings. It flew on and crashed on Eston Hills in a great plume of smoke. My brother rushed me home where everybody was looking from their doorsteps and then he and my other brother rushed off with some more of the village children to see what they could find. I was told years later that one of them had picked up a flying glove - with a hand still inside it! The plane was apparently lost from the night before and trying to get home. One plane on one other occasion dropped seven bombs between Middlesbrough and Ormesby during daylight - and killed a cow! Dad was most upset. I used to listen to the grown ups talking about things. I would hear them say things like 鈥淗e had to get rid of his bombs; I don鈥檛 think he ever intended to hit housing!鈥� They were after the works and the railway I suppose and Ormesby was on the route.
We had an Air raid Shelter in our Garth, which Dad and my brothers, both a lot older than me, dug out and built. I only remember going to it once and Dad shouting 鈥淏ack, back鈥� and we all rushed back to the house and to the cupboard under the stairs which we shared with the black beetles and the gas meter! The shelter was apparently flooded! One night the siren went and my Mother carried me down stairs. Half way down the front door blew open and she sat down quickly dropping me. The family used to laugh about this and I learned later it was because I had said 鈥淗as Mr Hitler come?鈥� Very polite!
One day I was in the Garth and my brothers and some of their friends had put up a tent and the ground was littered with hammers and watering cans etc when a plane flew over very low and we ran for the house, jumping over the obstacles scattered about. Something hit the fence with

a crack and the lads declared we were being shot at! When we emerged from the house they found a large piece of shrapnel which had gone straight through the planks of the fence just feet from were we had been. Incidents like this didn鈥檛 frighten me but air raid warnings did. I was at school at Nunthorpe and had to take my gas mask every day. We were told in graphic detail what would happen if we were gassed and hadn鈥檛 our gas masks with us. I walked ever day from Swan鈥檚 Corner to Nunthorpe and there was a bomb crater near Gipsy Lane turning. The bomb hadn鈥檛 exploded, I was told, so I ran past this point every time! Years later I was driving past when this land was all built up and was amazed to see that the land hadn鈥檛 been levelled out completely before building on it. I presume the bomb was defused!
All the cows had been sold, probably because of Dad鈥檚 illness and the big byre was all locked up. During the war I remember Dad going in there to check everything was O.K. It was full of great big metal bins, all sealed down and nobody seemed to know what was in them - well I didn鈥檛 anyway. Sometime after the war, the byre was opened up and lorries came to take away what was stored there. It turned out to be sugar and other dry goods and I presume it was the store for the area in case of a siege and that Dad would have had to distribute it. I remember my mother looking on in horror as sugar was thrown on to the lorry and saying what she could have done with a bit of that! The coalman, Mr Almond lived down the High Street from us and I used to take some of our soap ration for them and they swapped it for sugar!
Dad found rationing very hard to cope with. In the shop it was hard to
give people a couple of ounces of margarine when they had been getting pounds of home made butter not long before. Meat came in on a lorry and customers took turns in getting a mutton cloth off the imported mutton, from Australia, which when boiled made a good dish cloth or duster. The meat was black on the outside. I expect this was freezer burn. It looked awful and nobody wanted it. Dad spent hours slicing it off in wafer thin slices. It upset him dreadfully to have to offer such poor quality meat. There was no slaughtering at this time and no room for manoeuvre with the meat and fat allocation. Hours were spent counting the coupons and applying for the rations. Even our own chickens had to be accounted for. Dad took some of mums meat ration one day because Mrs Somebody had her one remaining son home on leave. He was very tender hearted and the worry of the rationing and war no doubt contributed to his illness as it did with so many. We had some whale meat in the shop once. Nobody wanted it; it was 鈥榣ike fish flavoured

leather鈥� was one brave triers comment apparently. I remember seeing tins of something called Snook on display in the window of the shop. Well there was nothing else to put in there. We relied so much on imports at that time-we should learn from that mistake but we don鈥檛 seem to have done so. It was brought home to me years later by my father in law who was in the Royal Navy and at one time on escort duty in a warship.
Dad had a slaughtermans licence and Monday was pig killing day. This may have been after the war, I am not sure. The old slaughterhouse was opened up and people who kept a pig on their allotment or in their back garden booked them in. They arrived on the Sunday on foot or in an old trailer if the owner could muster the petrol, on hand made carts and crates pushed by sweating families and were housed in the old farm buildings. It was all strictly regulated and I think you lost some of your rations when you killed a pig. Dad used a humane killer and did the skilled cutting and curing. The hams and sides of bacon were salted down and collected some weeks later but the offal, liver; heart, kidneys, sausages, black pudding etc were collected soon after. People seemed to be so thoughtful, all neighbours would get something, and it was quite a celebration. 鈥楩ridges were rare and freezers none existent but even so there was a feeling that you looked after each other. Dad didn鈥檛 like this side of his job.
During the war, Dad was a special Constable but from what I heard a lot of time was spent meeting up with the fire wardens etc, patrolling at night and 鈥榩opping in鈥� to 鈥榙rink my tea ration鈥� He never talked about what he did and we had to keep quiet when the news was on the radio. This was how I realised how awful the war was and indeed what war was: otherwise I would have thought that this was just normal life. I heard the reports of ships sunk and of bombing and invasions. There was always the worry of relatives. My cousin was missing, my uncles in Africa and Germany, numerous village people away at the war or on war work. A dreadful stillness descended on the house as news came through of local losses and woundings by word of mouth or in the local paper. My parents spoke in hushed voices but you can鈥檛 fool children like that!
My brother worked on Grey Towers Farm at Nunthorpe but was itching to join up. They had several land girls on the farm and he talked about how hard the work was for them and how they would not be beaten. They were teased relentlessly but although I felt sorry for them at the time that the stories were being related of tricks that were played on them, I realise now with maturity that they probably enjoyed it as much as the perpetrators did! There was also a couple of prisoners of war, one

of them he talked about quite a lot was called or nicknamed Felix. He hadn鈥檛 agreed with the war and wanted to stay after the war was over but he was not allowed too. Peter was quite upset. I hope he was safe. My younger brother rejoiced when his school at Eston was damaged but his joy didn鈥檛 last long when the school was moved to Eston Grange.
My father took meat to Hemlington Hospital and I went with him sometimes. On one memorable occasion we went on a very hot day and as we drove past the front of the hospital there was a group of wounded soldiers and airmen sitting outside in the sun as we drove the van to the kitchen door. What an awful sight. 鈥橠on鈥檛 stare - and wave if they do. That鈥檚 the very least you can do鈥� It brought home to me the awfulness of war. At the kitchen door I got out of the van and one of the men called out to me to come and see him. I walked across and they asked who I was and what were we delivering. They were laughing and joking, dressed in an assortment of uniform and pyjamas. One was sitting on an ordinary chair. He had a leg missing completely and the other gone from just below the knee. One arm was alright and the other gone above the elbow. I must have stared at him! He had an RAF battledress jacket on the good arm. He balanced himself with crutches. One man had his arm plastered almost straight up in the air with a bar down to his chest which was also plastered, to hold it. All of them, about eight I think were amputees or were heavily plastered. Dad came to talk to them and when we got back in the van he said 鈥榯hat is the most important thing we have done today鈥� I know now what he meant. It is vivid in my memory to this day.
At the beginning of each month people were eager to get some of their sweet ration. Trouble was there were not always sweets to get. You knew when Smithermans had sweets in at the little wooden corner newsagents shop next to Miss Elerby鈥檚 haberdashery and opposite the Post Office. There would be a stream of people walking down the road. You could occasionally buy 鈥榦ff the ration鈥� goods. The ones I remember best were 鈥榟undreds and thousands鈥� made from dried breadcrumbs and colouring. They were horrible!

If things were like this in a country village, what must it have been like in the town?
My grand parents had moved to Normanby Road from Middlesbrough when they had a near miss with a bomb which cracked the wall of their house from top to bottom. The army then commandeered it for their use. Granny spent her time knitting socks and gloves for soldiers and

prisoners with wool recovered from old sweaters. I hope they didn鈥檛 mind the rainbow colours!
Because of the danger from bombers going over the village, I was evacuated to the Lake District with my cousins. It must have been 1940. I only lasted a few months and was brought home 鈥檛o die鈥� with measles. Once home and recovered I resumed my village life, trespassing on the Ormesby Hall estate and annoying the gamekeeper if that was what he was. We had Christmas parties in the village hall which I believe Mrs Pennyman had a lot to do with and she came for me to be in one of her plays one day. We rehearsed in the laundry. This started an interest in amateur dramatics and theatre that I have to this day and for which I am very grateful. One day during the war I went with a message to Ormesby Hall. I marched up to the front door and was ushered in to the hall, while the servant went to find someone. I was having a good look round when I became aware that someone was sitting in an armchair at the fireplace. It was the Colonel and he was fast asleep. I gave my message to whoever came and they told me to come to the back entrance in future. Not me, I thought, the front is good enough. I think life at the hall must have been hard for the Pennymans who were used to servants and days of plenty.
The unsung heroes in places like Ormesby are probably the women. Many of them worked for the war effort. Nothing was wasted. Bones, paper and string were all saved. Recipes were invented and swapped, I know from those I found in my mothers kitchen drawer, Ground rice substituted ground almond, scraps of bread were added to stews, there are endless recipes for eggless or fatless cakes and Christmas sweets made by stuffing dates with artificial marzipan and an idea of making a tin of pineapple go further by adding cubes of cooked turnip! The children collected rosehips for the manufacture of rosehip syrup. And did we collect chestnuts?

Unfortunately, Ormesby also gave many of her sons.

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