´óÏó´«Ã½

This story has been added to the website by CSV volunteer Ann Toomey, on behalf of the author, Mary Mitchell who understands the site's terms and conditions.

The first time I remember the word War mentioned was when my mother said an announcement was to be made at 11 o’clock. It was 3rd September, 1939 and I was just 4 days short of my 13th birthday. I listened to that broadcast and felt a shiver all over. Then minutes later the air raid sirens sounded the first of many I was to hear.

My father was in the Merchant Navy, and at sea, he was Captain of an oil tanker. We were all terribly worried for him.

We were living in West Dulwich; the nearest landmark was the Crystal Palace.

My father got word to my Mother that as and when it could be arranged he wanted his children moved to a safe place — I had a 10 year old sister, Joyce and a 7 year old brother, John.
The Government decided that all school children would be evacuated to the countryside. Our school, along with all the others were told to obey instructions and to be at the railway station designated. We were all in buses and taken to the railway station, it was now June, l940. Our Mother came, as did other parents to see us off on the train, with our gas masks, suitcase, label around your neck and in our case, panama hat, tennis racquet.

There were lots of hugs and tears — told to be good, remember your manners and look after your sister and brother and to write home.

We set off going to goodness knows where, we all had a sandwich and a drink. Several hours later, I don’t remember how many, until we stopped at a small station called St. Germans. You can imagine that we were getting away from all things German we thought and here we were. Well we were met by lots of ladies and got onto coaches with our siblings — school friends. We arrived at a village called Landrake, more ladies, taken to the Sir Robert Geoffrey Hall, a benefactor of the village from years back. A lady called Marjorie Menhimick, said we were going to a big farmhouse and would take 6 children — so my schoolfriend, Yvonne Kleen, her twin sister Pat and Maureen, joined us — we went to the Barton Farm. We were introduced to our new home for a few years. Mr. and Mrs. J.S. Congdon owned the farm and ran it with their two sons, Francis and Harold. They had also two daughters, one married to a farmer and the younger one who was in poor health.
We were so very lucky to stay with them — Auntie and Uncle for ever.

We all grew up in Landrake. School was shared with the village children, some lessons in the school — others in the Geoffrey Hall. I learnt how to milk cows, feed the pigs and chickens, helped with the corn harvest, ride the pony — tackle up the cart horses.

When Plymouth got blitzed in May 1941, Auntie took in some people from Plymouth who got bombed out of their homes. My sister got appendicitis — was taken to hospital in Plymouth for an operation. I was in the blacksmiths at the time with one of our horses — got called back to the farm. The King and Queen were visiting Plymouth at the time too; they were very brave to come. Plymouth got bombed for five nights in a row. Lots of patients for the hospital, including my sister, were put on a hospital train and moved to Exeter for safety. I went back to Dulwich for a short while, just in time for doodle bugs (V2’s) dropping on London and surrounding areas.

My mother decided she would come to Cornwall — stayed there — also bringing Grandad as Grandma had died — he was on his own. I finished my schooling in Plymouth Tech, bus to Saltash — train to North Road Station. Most of the houses had no glass in their windows, nor did the buses either. Milehouse depot was damaged — the blast blew the bus windows out.
Marjorie, the lady who first took us to the Barton became my best friend — later became godmother to one of my sons. I loved Landrake and still do — keep in touch with Marjorie and also Francis and his wife. We moved from the Barton when her daughter and granddaughter came to live there, so we moved to School Road with Mrs. Iris Crocker, who became my second mother and she became part of my family with her husband, Cliff — son Kenneth. I could go on and on about her, she came to my wedding, was with me before my daughter was born — was godmother to my second son, Simon. She died on Christmas Day l997.

The war of course carried on until June 1945 — August 1945 — VE Day — VJ Day. Eventually we all went home — I couldn’t settle, so as the war was till not over, I came back to Cornwall, joined the Women’s Land Army 1943 — 1949. The lady who was the district welfare and general looker after you lady, was Mrs. Rashleigh from Stokedon House at the top of Lashbrook Hill, can't remember the correct address. My first posting was to a dairy farm — a large one 20 — 30 cows to be milked twice a day and by hand — the Boss i.e. the farmer did not like machines. I would help with the milking to start with, then leave it to the others, 2 men and the farmer, who would carry the full churns cross the farmyard to the dairy, where I would be waiting to cool the milk — then bottle if in glass bottles and cardboard caps, into crates ready for the milk lorry to come at 8am to take the milk to Plymouth XL Dairies for distribution to the customers. Then at the end everything had to be sterilized ready for the afternoon milking — so the pattern followed, day after day, week after week. Then there was field work, picking peas, hoeing the rows of vegetables, putting the cows out into the fields and bringing them in and so on.

I moved to a general farm where I was mostly on my own no company, and the field work was hard, in all weathers. I had to do my clothes washing myself out in the yard in a wooden trough — not very hot water. After a while I moved to a garden nursery in Saltash, learnt to disbud chrysanthemums — help with floral tributes — I decided it wasn’t for me and moved on again. This time I went to work for Cornwall Agricultural Committee — this was when I was a rat catcher — lots of tales about those days, chased by dogs, bulls, cockerels — geese. It was an offence during the war to let rats eat the corn, so we had to put poison down one day and go back a couple of days later to pick up the bodies to dispose of them. We carried enough strychnine and arsenic to kill many people, but it was just kept in tins in the back of our utility vans, but no one used to take anything that didn’t belong to them, so it was quite safe. Looking back I think what a great responsibility I had. I was asked by CWAC if I would take lessons to drive a four ton vehicle, this I did and passed. The lorry depot was at Pennygillam, Launceston. The test was around the coast road and if anyone remembers the old main road in Launceston they will remember that dreadful hairpin bend. I brought the lorry back to Hatt where it was based. The EVW's, European Volunteers Workers, mostly men ex-army Polish — displaced persons were billeted in Nissan huts in Hatt. I used to drive them to different farms each day and also stop work with them at the last farm. The LA carried on after the war ended — until the men were demobbed from the services — came back to their old jobs. I left the LA in 1949 and into civilian occupation. I had met my husband during my LA days when he had come out of the Army and we married in 1950. I have some old photographs of those days in the LA. I am still here 65 years later, Cornwall gets to you.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.