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This Story was submitted to the People’s War web site by ´óÏó´«Ã½ Volunteer, Keith Wilson and has been added to the site by him. He fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Recently one of my Grand daughters asked me what I was doing in the Second World War, as her Class was studying it at school in Year 2. So decided to write down my story for her and her it is … My name is Keith Wilson, the youngest son of Alec and Denise Wilson of Hatherden, Near Andover, in Hampshire. I had two older brothers, nine and ten years older respectively. When the war started I was 7 years old, and we were all living with my parents on a poultry farm in North Hampshire with over 200 laying hens. My brothers were away a lot of the time at Boarding School. I remember quite clearly the day war was declared. It was midday on Sunday the 3rd of September, 1939 and we were all listening to the wireless broadcast by the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, and heard those famous words, ‘…….as no undertaking has been received, this country is therefore at war with Germany’. Little did I know how this was going to alter our lives. Even so life had to go on as usual and gradually things changed and life became more restrictive. On the farm the eggs still had to be collected and the hens fed as usual. Often it was my job to go and collect the eggs from the trap nests, releasing the hen and recording who had laid the egg. The dirty eggs had to be washed in a special machine, dried and then placed on trays that were stacked and placed into boxes ready to go to market.

Food was rationed and we were only allowed so much of each item in exchange for a coupon, which was then cut out of our Ration Book. We had a single cow, which was our "House Cow" who was called Buttercup. I used to hand milk her and some milk was then skimmed for the cream and any extra milk was made into butter. We had help on the farm from a Land Girl, who lived with us. We had a series of girls as they never seemed to stay for any length of time. They had to look after the chickens and feed them. The chickens were kept in large runs each with a big house in the apple orchards. In another large wooden building was a large walk in incubator, where we could hatch our own chicks. At a day old they had to be sorted and sexed in order to decide their futures.

During school term time I used to go daily to a private school by car. It was eight miles away at a place called Weyhill. It took about twenty minutes to get there. Because there was petrol rationing we had to share with others who lived nearby. The school was only two miles away from Andover airfield and on several occasions this airfield was attacked by German aircraft. When this happened we had to go down into the cellars for protection. One day during our lessons we heard a lot of machine gun fire and some explosions. No siren had been sounded to warn us of an attack. Later we learnt that the Germans had attacked the airfield and dropped some bombs.

During harvest time in 1941 I was out on a neighbouring farm watching the corn being cut. The old combine harvester was being pulled by a caterpillar tractor and the man driving it had a shotgun across his knees. He would shoot any rabbits that tried to run away. They were not rationed so rabbit stew was very popular. This was at the time that the Battle of Britain was being fought in the skies above us. We heard the sound of a battle in the sky far above us. Then suddenly a German aircraft came swooping over us firing his machine guns. It was being chased closely by a Spitfire. This was all too much for the tractor driver for he fired both barrels of his shotgun at the German and in all the excitement nearly fell out of the tractor. We heard later that the German aircraft had been shot down twenty miles away.

All the local able bodied men, who were not in reserved occupations, had gone off to join the Army, leaving behind the older men to work on the farms. Many of these men joined the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV) which later became the Home Guard. My father started the local unit with John Cherrington, the well known Local Farmer and Broadcaster. To start with they did not have any uniforms or weapons. They had armbands to say that they were LDV and later Home Guard. They were armed with pitch forks and pick helves to defend themselves against German parachutists. They worked on the farms during the day and watched out at night. Later they were given uniforms and old rifles.
The farm was some forty miles north of the large port of Southampton which was bombed on numerous occasions at night. The red glow from the fires could be seen clearly. Half a mile away from the farm was a small army unit equipped with large search lights. They shone their bright shafts of light into the sky at night trying to light UD the German bombers. Sometimes the bombers would come our way, then the sirens would sound out their warning. If I were at home with my mother we would pile mattresses on the dining room table and then crawl under with our blankets to wait for the all clear siren. One night whilst we were waiting we heard the sound of bombs being dropped at regular intervals getting nearer and nearer. Then we heard the engines of a bomber flying overhead. Then came the whistle of the bombs dropping. We waited for the explosions and the blast; only to hear several dull thuds as the bombs failed to explode. This was all very close to the house. Several weeks later four unexploded bombs were found in the field opposite the house only 800 yards away. They had to be exploded and the blast rattled the windows even though they were open at the time. It was lucky that the blackout was good otherwise the bombs might have been on the house. Fortunately we had both shutters and heavy curtains.

In 1943 my father was working full time with the Home Guard as Second in
Command of the local battalion. He used to go everywhere on a motorcycle and it was whilst riding the machine that he had a serious accident with an American Army lorry. He spent a long time in hospital recovering. During this time I found a mortar bomb in our garage. It was duly removed in a box cushioned with hay to protect it to the local police station. Later it was removed by an Army Bomb Disposal team who were less fortunate in dealing with it. Whilst taking it away to explode it, the team of a Captain and a Sergeant were blown up. The Captain was killed and the Sergeant badly injured. Both were decorated for their bravery.

The threat of the German bombers was replaced by the flying bombs or "Doodle Bugs" as everyone called them. They had a very distinctive sound as they chugged across the sky until the engine suddenly stopped. A short period of complete silence followed before the bomb hit the ground and exploded with devastating damage to the surrounding area.

As the war went on year after year all able bodied people had gone off to join the Armed Forces, leaving the old and less able to keep things going at home. Apart from their normal work everyone tried to help the war effort by doing second jobs such as joining the Home Guard or helping out at the local hospital and keeping the essential services running by being part time policemen or firemen. Everyone tried to help out what ever their age. I was only ten years old when I joined the St John Ambulance Cadets. We were trained in First Aid and had to carry out tasks in the home for the elderly and infirm.

Two years later I was old enough to join the Army Cadets who had a Drum and Bugle Band. I became a drummer and played a side drum. We had to practice several times a week and took part in numerous parades. In the last year of the war we were in great demand as there were many parades to celebrate our victories and in particular the great celebrations of the end of the war in Europe and finally the defeat of the Japanese in the Far East.

Towards the end of the war we had many visitors to the farm, The Americans arrived in their hordes to help swell the invasion forces before D Day, the 6th June 1944. The Christmas before,we had four American Officers to share our Christmas meal. They had all been on duty without a break for the previous week so were very tired. After the meal they all went to sleep in front of the fire in the Front Room. After a couple of hours sleep they had to return to duty to prepare for the invasion.

As we were near the coast and the ports the whole area was full of troops preparing for the invasion. On many occasions small units came to the farm to practice their skills. One such unit dug trenches to defend the farm. When they departed in a hurry they failed to fill in the trenches. At this time we had a horse with a young foal. During the daytime they were in out in a field but brought in at night time. The foal was very lively and fell into an open trench. It was very frightened so it was difficult to see if it was hurt in anyway. Someone suggested giving it some brandy to quieten it down. Eventually it was lifted out and taken back to the stable. It was unable to walk and kept falling down. When the Vet came and inspected the foal he pronounced it to be undamaged but drunk.

Recently a book has been published on the three villages were I grew up during the war. It is entitled "Tangley, Hatherden and Wildhern and covers the period from the mid 1880's until modern times. Some of the episodes related above are also covered in this book. Grandpa and his familv are featured in the book.

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