大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War Site by Ruth Jeavons for Three Counties Action, on behalf of Donald Faulkner, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was watching a football match one evening, aged about 13, when there was a thunderstorm and I saw three barrage balloons burst into flames and drift up flaming into the sky. They鈥檇 been caught by lightning. It was visible from about 6 miles away. (The balloons were connected together by able in a line, but these three got away.) There was an airship station at Cardington and its hangars were the largest buildings in the country. They also built airships there. (Do you remember the I 101 crash and the Hindenburg?) They were RAF defence balloons and some of them did passenger flights. I remember the airfield opening and seeing aircraft there in1937.

I remember the Coventry air raid because there was a continuous stream of aircraft flying overhead. German planes had diesel engines and sounded different from our own planes. I was terrified and spent the night under the kitchen table. (I was about 14 at the time.) We could see the fires in Coventry burning from here, 60 miles away. We could also see the fires when London was burning.

There were 5 of us. My Dad was 38 when the war broke out and he was a keen gardener, so we weren鈥檛 too badly off. He worked for the Stewartby Brickworks and so we kept going all through the war. The brickworks kept everyone prosperous in these parts. They stored Sherman tanks from the USA that arrived covered in grease and wrappings and had to be stripped and cleaned and prepared for action. The brickworks did a lot of wartime engineering work and were subcontracted to make casings 鈥� huge metal tanks filled with concrete that were part of the Mulberry Harbours used at the Normandy landings. You could walk through them.

In the early part of the war my grandmother took in two boys from Walthamstow as evacuees, but they went back after 2 months as there was a lull. Their father manufactured superior gas mask cases. He鈥檇 been a suitcase manufacturer before the war. Then later in the war (between 1940 and 1941) a school from Rye was evacuated up here. I had half-day elementary schooling for three years. I went to school with the Rye children from age 11.

We learnt the three Rs, and we had a small gardening club. We were country bumpkins. We used to have a half-day off every Empire Day, and we sang in assemblies both in the mornings and at the end of the day. Very valuable. The war gave us free and very comprehensive geography and history lessons. Every day different parts of the world were mentioned. Every boy was expert in aircraft spotting and identifying the different planes. We knew them all 鈥� the German and US and British planes.

I remember the day war broke out. I鈥檇 been to Sunday School along with every other child in the village and I heard the announcement on my grandmother鈥檚 radio. The lowest point in the war was after the Dunkirk evacuation. Aged eleven I realised that we were in desperate danger.

My mother was very practical and kept us in good order. She was a housewife 16 hours a day and proud of it 鈥� a great hymn singer round the kitchen. My father was a keen gardener. He grew everything: runner beans, butter beans, potatoes for the whole year, carrots that we kept in 2 clamps in the back garden. We had 4 big apple trees. We bottled blackcurrants and gooseberries. We ripened tomatoes by putting them green between the sheets. We gathered blackberries and made jams and jellies. We also kept rabbits and chickens. We always had a couple of broody hens that hatched their young themselves, and we had a couple of cockerels. We would eat the chickens after three years and kept the cockerels for Christmas. We got a neighbour to kill them. My grandmother thought it was a good day out when we went gleaning for the chickens. She used to make ointments and was an expert knitter of socks on 4 needles. And she made lace. She was also expert on Dickens鈥� novels.

My Dad was a very hardworking man. He went out looking for extra work and would lop trees for local farmers, pollard willows and cut the lowest branches off elms. I would go with him to cut the trees down and he hired a horse and cart from the farmer to bring back enough firewood to keep us warm through the winter. He paid the farmer half a crown (2s 6d or 15p) for the wood. We weren鈥檛 cold in winter and always had a good fire. He always warned me, 鈥淣ever pitch your tent under an elm鈥�.

I used to enjoy going camping, but carrying everything you needed six miles could be a drag. I had a wonderful childhood.

My family lived all around the neighbourhood: my two grandmothers, uncles and aunts all lived close by. I used to go to my grandmother鈥檚 for lunch every Saturday until I was called up at 18 (after the war in 1947). She lived in a tiny cottage and we had lovely meat puddings with a suet dough and apple puddings. Grandfather lived to be 92. They were teetotal Methodists. I had three uncles (married to my aunts) who were lay preachers 鈥� all the life and soul of the party. They used to cycle round all the churches in the Kempston circuit as far as Sandy (14 miles away). We lived on our bikes.

The RAF came to Cranfield in1938 and brought lots of benefits to the village. There were RAF cafes and restaurants, and a cinema 鈥� just opposite where we are now. It only closed down in the early 60s. And there was a village hop every Saturday to which all the local girls were drawn.

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