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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 Joan Cone who has given permission for it to be submitted. Joan Cone fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I started work at the Co-op stores in Kirton in 1940, taking the place of a man who had been called up. By the time I started threr people were used to rationing. We knew who our good customers were and we knew a lot of them by their divvy numbers. What I particularly remember was the shortage of golden syrup. If customers were rationed for sugar, we could often let them have syrup, if we had any. People used to bring in 1lb. jam jars, and we filled these from the 2lb. tins of syrup. Our customers even washed the tins and returned them to us for re-cycling! I remember one day when an elderly lady came in and asked if we had any syrup. When I told her we didn’t, she pointed to a syrup tin on the shelf behind me. ‘Would you like that tin?’ I asked ‘Yes please’ was the reply. So I gave it to her. ‘But it’s empty’ she said. ‘Well you said you wanted the tin’ was my cheeky answer.
Another old lady who lived in the village had a butler. Her groceries always came from a well know Felixstowe store, but if there were shortages the butler always tried us. We never had syrup when he called!
At the end of the week it was my job to count all the coupons. I was never very pleased if someone opened the door while I was doing that — the coupons blew all over the place!
We worked from 8a.m. til 6p.m. and were closed on Wednesday afternoons. I sometimes went to Ipswich on the bus on early closing day, but never bought anything — the shops there were closed too. We just window shopped but there wasn’t much you could buy anyway.
About 250 soldiers were billeted in Kirton. They mostly slept in tents, and the church room became their mess hut. As we are near the coast, there was a search light in the village looking out for aircraft. The siren was at Felixstowe. One night a Canadian Airforce plane crashed just behind our shop. I don’t remember much about it. All the crew members were killed and some of the debris ended up in the garden of an old lady who lived by herself. My mum said I must go and live with her for a while, so she wasn’t alone at night. I don’t remember people having shelters. In our house we just went into the cupboard under the stairs.
We had a good social life centred around the two village pubs, The Greyhound and The White Horse, specially if somebody played the piano. We had some good sing songs, and sometimes we cleared a space had made room for dancing. We went to proper dances in Newbourne Village Hall. The soldiers took us in their trucks.
I cycled a lot with my friends. Sometimes we cycled to Felixstowe Ferry and got a boat over to Bawdsey Manor where American Servicemen were stationed.
I eventually married a local man who told me I had broken his heart many times by socialising with the other soldiers. The night before I got married, in November 1944, 14 doodlebugs were shot down over the east coast near Kirton.
In December of the same year I went with my husband to stay with his sister in Chelmsford. It was while we were there that a German V2 rocket hit the Hoffman’s munitions factory in Chelmsford, and I remember it well. Men, women and many young girls were singing Christmas carols during a break in the night shift. All the lights went out, and the explosion started a fire in 20 oil barrels in one of the store rooms. £9 workers were killed, and 33 were seriously injured. Many homes were also destroyed. I was really pleased to come home, because everyone in Chelmsford was talking about it.
I continued to work at the shop until my son was born after the war ended.

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