大象传媒

This story was contributed to the peoples war site by a volunteer from Swavesey Village College on behalf Margaret Stevens by Matthew Leach and has been added to the site with her permission Margaret fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

A fundraising event was held in the village hall in aid of wings for victory (RAF) and I sang a song and won a prize which was a royal Copenhagen puppy ornament which had been donated (I still have this prize today).

Soldiers used to practise manoeuvres in the village. They were always very hungry. My mum was making pancakes on Pancake Day and she made pancakes for all of the soldiers who were hiding in the hedge across from the house. On another occasion she cooked bacon and eggs and fried bread for two sets of apposing soldiers in different parts of the house so they didn't meet. Tanks came through the village past the school; the windows were too high up to see out of, so when the tanks came past we all rushed outside to see them.

Rabbits were kept as food. My parents sold these to the butcher we never ate the ones that we reared ourselves because we looked after them, but ate wild ones that my father caught. We also kept chickens for eggs. One day some American soldiers brought a rabbit to one of my friend's mothers asked them if they could skin and cook it for them, which she gladly did. Unfortunately, the next day when they went out to feed their rabbit they found it gone because the Americans had taken the rabbit out of their cage.

We had evacuees in the village. I remember them being in a very sorry state, some didn't even know how to use knives and forks. My mother felt very sorry for them and gave them all of our toys (we never saw our toys again). My family had an evacuee boy called Peter staying with us; he was a doctor's son from Hull. He stayed for about six months until his mum came and fetched him back. He promised to keep in touch but we never heard from him again and we think that he was probably killed in the bombing raids on hull.

Silverstone the race track is now were they holding the British grand prix but during the war it was an aerodrome. Once I saw two plans collide. People used to go and collect scraps from these crashes to make ornaments. There was also a bombing range just over a mile away from the village.

There was a prison camp nearby at Grendon Underwood (this is now an open prison). German prisoners there used to make toys for the local children. A German P.O.W repaired a grandfather clock owned by my uncle Will.

We heard about the end of the war in a message over the radio. The night before we had been told there would be an announcement and so the next day we were given the day off school.

My dad had a van that he had made on a Morris chassis; he had no licence or insurance for it as it was used mainly for farm work. On May the 8th 1945 (VEday) all the family got onto the back of the van and went round collecting people everyone scrambled onto it. We had a flag and went to a tree in the middle of the village, my father had a flag pole and we fixed it up in the tree. My father went up to London and brought lots of fireworks, which were very hard to come by at the time. The village had a bonfire and let off the fireworks then everyone went to the village hall and had a big dance to celebrate. I was 12 years old at the time.

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