大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Carolyn Hendra on behalf of Harry Pilgrim, the author, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

With the outbreak of war many of our staff were called up into the services or had to do work of national importance. Our regular guests, used to an high level of service, found this difficult to cope with. My mother did manage to get some older retired staff, including the father of our headwaiter, a very stately 鈥� and slow 鈥� butler! My sister got involved in the hotel, until she, like my dear wife Val, joined the WRENS. Our chef of many years was Swiss, so never got called up. We did take on the 鈥楳ad Parson鈥�, a murderer who had escaped from Broadmoor 鈥� but that was 1947 and another story! While at school I was sent for a medical to decide if I would be fit for the services. I never found out why, but they classed me as C3 鈥� totally unfit! On leaving school I had to do work of national importance and went to work for 鈥淭he Cornwall Electric Power Company鈥�, then owned by Edmondson鈥檚. For the most part I went out as a mate to work on farms, many of which were getting electricity for the first time.

The period prior to D-day was particularly difficult as in theory at least the whole south coast was a banned area, unless you had special reason to be there. The Helford River filled up with huge strange structures which we later found were to become Mulberry Harbour. New machines called 鈥淏ulldozers鈥� arrived to push all the Cornish hedges back along the roads leading from Truro to the Helford River, closely followed by troops, lorries and tanks. Few of them could have fitted in our narrow lanes. It was a great culture shock for an otherwise quiet country area.

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