大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by volunteer from The Chepstow Society on behalf of David Barber and has been added to the site with his permission. David Barber fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was nearly 5 years old when the war started, and lived on a farm, which was part of a large estate in the parish of West Grinstead, near Horsham, Sussex

My father worked on the farm as a carter, with two Suffolk Punch horses, Victora and Violet

For me living as I did in the countryside, we did not have or see the damage that made life difficult for those living in towns

Food; My parent's grew their own vegitables, and because there were cattle on the farm kale was grown, and when it was young, we used to pick the tops out, and when cooked it was just like currly kale. sweeds were also grown on the farm, which when cooked (the smaller ones), made yet another course for a meal.

My parents kept both chicken and ducks. The latter had water by the blocking up of a ditch at the top of the garden, so that they could swim and clean there feathers. The egg's not used were stored in Sylglass solution, which kept them for about two years, so that when the chicken stopped laying, she could use them

During the course of the year, rabbits, pidgeon,and game also became available

School; We were collected at the cross roads of the A24/A272, which were in those days the two major trunck roads in the south of England, by the local coal merchant with his lorry, which he just sweept out, and bench seats were fixed along each side, so that if it had been wet, even though a canvas cover was put over the lorry, you could get soot marks, both on your self and on your school uniform, which made my mother cross(being a very house proud women)as she would clean them off ready for school next day.

The school was some 5 miles away at the other end of the parish, in Partridge Green. It was a Church of England school, which taught you from the age of 5 until you left school at 15. We had 5 classes.
My teachers during the war period were Mrs Saunders(infants) and Mr Green (juniors). Both were kindly and tried to ensure you learnt how to read and write,with games also being a very important part of the school year, as there were sports meeting's both a school, were you were put into different teams(Nelson,green.Drake,yellow.Wellington,red. Malborough,blue), but also against other schools within a 15 mile radius

Prisnors of War;Locally we had Itilan prisnors, looked after by Canadian troops, and German prisnors who came to work on a local farm.These were controlled by American troops.The Itilan made small dolls and alike which they gave to us. My sister had two dolls,which she kept for a long time. When the German's stopped at the crossroads, the American's used to hand out bannan's and oranges. These we would get on a fortnightly basis, so for me I did not know the difficulties that my cousins in London were having to get fruit

During the summer holidays, we children on the farm, were allowed to roam free, and would only come home for the evening meal at 6.00pm, because my mother said it would be on the table at that time, and it would just get cold if we did not come home on time,and it could not be wasted, so we would have to eat it cold

Duddlebugs; None drop near us, but when they came over we used to run out of the house and count up to 6, when the engines would cut out and come down

German Airforce; Again we saw and heard them, but only one came down near to our farm, where my father who was in the Homeguard, had to go out with his platoon to search and capture any one found alive. They did find the pilot of the fighter that came down, and he was brought back to our farm, where he was given food and a drink, prior to the local policman coming to get him and take him off to be handed over to the army

End of War; When the war came to an end, we had a party on the farm, where the dairy, which was tiled with white tiles was used, with the tables being set outside on the veranda,and the food provided by our mothers. There was also a parish party at the village hall at Dialpost, which was given by "the gentry" of our parish, and finally one at the school,where our school cooks prepared the food, and it was here that I had proper jelly for the first time, although the icecream was made of semalena

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