´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Lynn Hughes on behalf of the author, D. Rosemary Ridgment who fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was born in 1934 and lived in the village of Fraddon. My father was in the RAF; I was an only child at that time. When the evacuees came to Fraddon there were several of them, boys and girls, all around the same age as myself. We all attended Indian Queens Primary School. We became good friends and with some others, who were Cornish and lived in the village, played together and met socially in the chapels. My special friend was Shirley Cohen who was evacuated with her sister Rosetta; I still correspond with her at Christmas and talk occasionally on the phone.

My mother and I had an evacuee called Stella Fombonne and she returned to us again when the doodlebugs came over London. I still correspond with her and she and her husband have come down to stay. When the enemy planes flew over our house trying to bomb St Eval my mother would bring me downstairs and we would shelter under a rather substantial kitchen table. I never woke up but was always sick!

Before my father joined the RAF he was in the Home Guard, I remember they were a motley bunch very much like those in "Dad’s Army". I have a feeling that some children were evacuated here as a group and attended Summercourt School. A family was part of this and lived in Fraddon Mr. and Mrs Hart, Jane and Susan. Although we went to different schools we were still friends. Jane has stayed with us on occasions and we write at Christmas. Susan lives in Canada but came to visit us several years ago when she was over on holiday. Mr Hart was a teacher and taught at Summercourt.

Of course we had sweets etc. and used to suck Oxo cubes, eat carrots, sprouts and swede (raw of course). Imagine my delight when the American Forces rolled through Fraddon and they threw us sweets -wonderful. There was another aspect of this several children were born in the area who were coloured! My mother had a difficult time trying to explain this to me!

We had no running water in those days only oil lamps and candles - I went to bed and read by torchlight. Most of the village had their toilet in the back garden. When my father went away in the RAF he dug trenches in the garden so that my mother could empty the ‘bucket’ without too much difficulty. We didn’t suffer from the lack of sewage and water, however, and had a wonderful pump at the bottom of the garden crystal clear and cold water. When sewage and water was brought through Fraddon the Water Board poisoned all the wells and pumps! It was a most idyllic childhood we roamed around the village, woods and moors.

One winter 19944-45 very heavy snow fell in our part of Cornwall, I was then going to the Grammar School in Newquay, catching the train from St Columb Road and of course I was then unable to go to school. Many of us had the most fantastic snowball fight with some Italian prisoners of war who were housed at Whitecross. I think the site is now a holiday park we were down a Lane called Barton Lane, which ran between Fraddon, and Whitecross, which is on the main road linking St Columb Road and Newquay.

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