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This story was submitted to the People's War site by volunteer from The Chepstow Society on behalf of Betty Bennet and has been added to the site with her permission. Betty Bennett fully understands the site's terms and conditions.Madeline鈥檚 Gray鈥檚 Mother (Betty John - now Bennet)

A letter to my daughter

War Years in Chepstow

I was appointed to the staff of Chepstow Grammar School at Larkfield, to teach Biology, early in August 1939 (well done Mr. James Director of Education for Mon in 1993, having advised me to study Biology as there would be a need for Biology teachers). Only Botany had been taught in the school up to that date. The details of my interview have been given elsewhere.

Mr.Webb (Mr James鈥檚 son-in-law) the headmaster wrote to invite me to his house before term started and when I arrived at St. Lawrence Road and walked up to his front door he and Mrs Webb were having tea in a slightly sheltered part of the front lawn so had a good look at me before I became aware of them (typical). Mr.Webb gave me the Senior Mistress鈥� 鈥榩hone number (Miss Dora Smith) and having made contact with her I received two addresses for possible lodgings. Mrs Price, High Beech Farm, and Mrs Toms in Hardwicke Avenue. I tried Mrs Price first, but she had no room. I settled with Mrs Toms to have a bedroom and to live with the family (just the two of them by this time as both sons had been called up - one did not return). I think I paid 15/- a week for my room but supplied my food. My salary was 拢16 a month tax paid. In 1942-43 I moved to a house near the top of Hardwicke Hill recently bought by Molly Smith a Chepstow dentist鈥檚 daughter with whose family I had become friendly. Molly had remarried having lost her first husband on active service. I was to be company for her and two-year old son 鈥楤obby B鈥� (Bullock I think) as her second husband was in the army and away. The conditions were the same. After just over a year the situation changed and I moved to Asbourne House next door to the Three Tuns pub at the entrance to Chepstow Castle. Here I had a sitting room ground floor front and a bedroom second floor front and use of kitchen and bathroom for 25/- a week. Several other individuals and families had rooms in this roomy boarding house during my time. It gave me much more privacy. There was a gully directly outside my living room and many a soldier in the blackout stumbled off the pavement into this gully - I heard the full range of expletives during my time there. Luckily no-one came through the window on his way back from Chepstow pubs to barracks.

I was able to entertain mother and Mane and Len stayed with me there on several occasions. The Hardwicke Avenue House was demolished soon after the war to make way for the road to the new bridge over the Wye.

In school I taught Biology and for a short period Historical Geography where I followed the recommended book on the subject. Also I shared games and P.E. as we had a P.E. specialist teacher only one day a week and some years I had a class in Scripture (there was no specialist teacher). The Domestic Science teacher was shared with the Central School in the town and a county peripatetic Art teacher came to the school one day a week. Teachers shared responsibility for games practice after school and matches with other schools on Saturday mornings. The girls played hockey and netball in the winter and tennis and rounders in the summer. I coached hockey and rounders usually lunchtime because of the school bus difficulty. Boys played rugby in the winter and cricket in the summer.

I started Biology teaching in the school, my top forms 4A and B had two years to cover the syllabus for the CWB. Half of the pupils got credits which was very pleasing. That first year I also had a pupil for Higher School Cert, Biology, Joyce Vicarage, head girl, from Caerwent. She had passed Botany H.S.C. in the previous July, had to wait a year before entering Cardiff University and decided to add Zoology to her achievements. She passed also . So I had made a good start. There were about 300 pupils - boys and girls in the school coming from as far north as Whitebrook and west to the outskirts of Newport and Llangwm. Buses picked up pupils along the 鈥渂ottom road鈥� from Rogiet, Caldicot, Magor, Undy etc and along 鈥渢he top road鈥� from the outskirts of Newport, from the Bridge Inn, Llangwm and from near Brockweir. Pupils queued up outside the school gates after school to make the return journey. Most bus travellers had school dinners especially when rationing became tight. I had school dinners except when I was living with Molly who wanted to have someone to cook for.

War had been declared by the time I started at Larkfield. Lack of street lighting was no burden to someone coming from the country. I spent all weekends at home in Hendre Isaf St. Mellons, for a couple of years, until I became involved with Philip Price. I had charge of a match then I travelled home after lunch on the Saturday - lunch was served to visiting teams. I returned on Sunday evening frequently after chapel in Castleton. There was an hourly bus service from Cardiff to Gloucester most of the war. For a short time it was reduced to a two-hourly service especially on a Sunday.
Early on in that autumn term we were given the opportunity to contribute to the war effort. I joined the Civil Defence manning the 鈥榩hone in a room at the back of the police station (near the George Hotel), for a couple of hours one night a week and if there was an air raid warning during the night getting up and reporting there to see if anything was needed. After a couple of months of lack of activity the latter was cancelled. My uniform included a heavy navy overcoat which I kept for many years after the war. Mrs Hoare (wife of the S.W. Argus rep in Chepstow) chaired a meeting of ladies (well advertised venue) in September-October 39 to decide how best to help provide amenities for servicemen stationed locally. Also I spent a couple of hours once a week making and serving tea to the servicemen especially during the holidays when I had to travel up from St. Mellons to do this duty to men stationed locally in a chapel hall near the arch. This was somewhere the lads could gather and sit about and write their letters. Later on when it was decided to be necessary I slept one night a week on a camp bed on the school premises to keep watch in case of incendiaries . Philip frequently volunteered to be the other fire watcher when I was on duty. There weren鈥檛 any but we saw plenty of activity over Bristol from elevated points near Chepstow. I suppose The Girls鈥� Training Corps was part of the war effort.

A number of times I saw festoons of incendiaries dropping around Bristol, from the Chase road, and from the Trellech road. The whole area was lit up and the crack, crack of anti aircraft guns. I kept bits of shrapnel and coarse material from around the bomb crater for many years. It was quite frightening the first time but one got used to it in spite of pain in the pit of the stomach and thoughts perhaps its out turn next. One just carried on. The lid of my cut glass powder bowl and the large plate of my 鈥渂ottom drawer鈥� tea service wrapped up and in a box under a stone slab in the dairy. When the bombers couldn鈥檛 get over the city incendiaries and other bombs were dropped around the outskirts. Barrage balloons like floating whales in the sky over the bigger cities prevented bombers flying low. That鈥檚 how Hendre Isaf got caught. A line of four 1,000lb bombs were dropped across the area in 1942 or 43. One of the bombs landed 100yds from the house. The blast damaged the roof badly and broke a variety of items inside. I wasn鈥檛 there but was given a graphic account of the frightening experience. My family spent the rest of the night in the next farm Hendre Hall. The animals were frightened and noisy. Items of china were broken, the grand father clock fell to the floor. Within a few days tarpaulin had been spread over the roof, and windows repaired. I was informed in school and was sent home to give what help I could.

Back to the Girls鈥� Training Corps and the Air Training Corps for the boys with Mr. Robinson (acting headmaster) Commandant. I was Adjutant of the G.T.C. and kept the books and learned and dispensed drill training which occupied the first quarter about of each evening meeting. We met once a week for 1.1/2 - 2 hours, had various courses going to keep the girls on a level with the boys and identifying more with the war effort. During my time we attended two conferences - in Birmingham and London. Miss Carey Evans, grand daughter of David Lloyd George, was G.T.C. organizer for Wales. We paraded with the other groups on VE celebration day starting at the bottom of Hardwicke Avenue and through the centre of the town under the arch, then down Bridge Street and finally forming up on the open space in front of the entrance to the castle. Captain Bob Nelson ( my boy friend at that time) led his troop of soldiers to a place nearby.

There were large camps of soldiers all around the town - Sedbury, Bulwark, St. Lawrence Road, the Race Course (until it became
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indeed on the roads looking for feminine company. I was rarely available as most of the time I was with Philip, but in the gaps I met a few itinerant servicemen. Bob was the only one who lasted. I met him at the bar of the Beaufort where I was waiting for a teacher friend. He just came up and asked me if I鈥檇 have a drink with him. I had a drink and then arranged to meet him the following evening. Bob was a good friend and we had a lot of outings together. He visited Hendre, took me to Officers鈥� Mess dances in Mounton House, Welsh Street, the pictures, out to dinner, to most of the acceptable pubs in the town and within a few miles. We walked in the summer - one Saturday bus from Chepstow to Brockweir then walked from Brockweir to St. Briavels and back along the Chase to Chepstow, then back to Ashbourne House for tea. In 1946 he went back to Liverpool intending to carry on with his secretarial training. We wrote to each other occasionally. Just after I became engaged to Les I had a letter from him asking me to join him on a holiday in Speech House in the Forest of Dean in the summer. I gave my reasons for refusing and didn鈥檛 hear from him again.

The American troops were the most boisterous of all. Many would stop a girl anywhere and ask her for a date. This wasn鈥檛 so bad in the daytime but not so funny in the blackout. They must have thought there were willing ladies in Bridge Street because bunches of them would walk up and down the middle of the street shaking money in their cupped hands. Margaret Vaughan Williams (colleague) and I would look at them through the corner of the lace curtained windows in her first floor front bed sitter in Ashbourne House - I wouldn鈥檛 have dared to look through my ground floor front sitting room window.

Ron Evans was my boyfriend when I started at Hendre the weekend war was declared and the order came over the wireless for all servicemen and women on leave to return to their bases. He left by car that Sunday afternoon returning to Birkenhead where he was 鈥渟tanding by鈥� HMS Prince of Wales being built. Ron was a Chief E.R.A. so spent his time in the engine room. I spent a weekend with him in Birkenhead early in the war and was there the Friday night everyone in the country had to register so I had an identity number very different from the rest in Chepstow. I saw him when he was on leave and we wrote in between times. Soon he went off to the Far East on the Prince of Wales and everyone knows what happened to the ship out there. The last few air mail letters I wrote were returned months after the sinking. Ron spent most of his war time as a P.O.W. on the Burma railway camps and suffered miserably. The next time I heard from him was in September 1946 when I received a note written in pencil on lavatory paper and a bunch of flowers delivered by the Red Cross. I was engaged to Philip Price by this time.

I met Philip my second term in Larkfield but I gather he had noticed me and checked up when I called at High Beech Farm looking for lodgings. A few of the local teachers and some of their friends in the town arranged to meet in Larkfield one evening to play table tennis. This was a great idea - there was so little to do. All the young teachers went along. Philip was there with a girl from the town. He gave me a lift down to Mrs Toms and a few days later stopped his car when he passed me on the road and gave me a lift up the hill to school asking me for a date and whe I hesitated assuring me that the lady with him on the table tennis night was not a regular girl friend. And so the meetings began. Philip was such good company, we had great times together and over the years a lot of heart ache too because he was a very jealous man, and this led to our final break-up. He worked long hours and very hard , rarely walking when he was delivering milk always on the run. He deserved all the financial success he had eventually buying the Gondra Farm in Shirenewton. When I knew Philip first he had a milk round on his own but within a year there was a land girl living in (Muriel) and his cousin 鈥淵oung Phil鈥� (Price) helping him and by 1945 he had two more land girls and five vans all delivering milk from High Beech and picking up more from the centre in the town and farms around. After milk delivery he would be back helping his father with the general farm work. Winter time he could be finished early evening and down to pick me up but in the summer many an evening I walked or caught a bus up to High Beech and met him at whichever field hay was being gathered and even at 9 p.m. we鈥檇 dash home, he鈥檇 be washed and changed in 15 mins and with the trailer and two churns attached to the back of the car would drive out to St. Arvans to the Piercefield pub for 30 mins or so. Bars couldn鈥檛 be used for pleasure for much of the time since police would stop you and ask where you had come from and where you were going. Our destination would be to Bendall鈥檚 farm a few yards beyond the Piercefield where Philip picked up milk for his milk round each day. We would be picking up milk or returning churns and sometimes this was the case. One trip to Gloucester market or to Newport market was allowed periodically. These trips were made use of by the whole family. The evenings were light so late in mid-summer with double summertime. It had its advantages for farmers working late and conserving electricity but had its difficulties. I remember mother complaining bitterly about not being able to shoo the chickens into their shed at 11.30 p.m. Dad would have had to retire earlier because he was up at 6 a.m. to milk his 7 cows (by hand) then deliver milk around St. Mellons village. The milk would be measured out into jugs with a half pint measure and always a little extra added.

I recall a snap taken in High Beech yard. Five vehicles in line with the two Philips and three land girls, one beside each vehicle. Joan 鈥淵oung Phil鈥檚鈥� sister chose the land army rather than factory or nursing in 1940 and came to live in High Beech, when her husband joined up. All single women and married women without children had to register and give a preference and if they didn鈥檛 find 鈥渨ar work鈥� themselves were soon directed. Joan left the land army when she became pregnant with Jane.

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