大象传媒

Part One

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Jenny Ford on behalf of Mrs. Margaret Thomas and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

The following memories of Mrs. Margaret T. F. Thomas were recorded on 13th August 2005 at the VE/VJ Celebration event at the Castle Mound, The Embankment, Bedford.

鈥淚 was 16 years old when the war broke out and I lived at home with my parents who ran a tobacconist and confectionery shop in Great Dunmow. I used to work two or three evenings a week at the Anglo-American Club which was built on our recreation ground. It was a new building erected in our recreation ground. I used to serve at the counter and we used to see all nationalities coming in during the evening, coming in from bombing raids, all sorts of things like that.

The airfield nearby was Great Eastern. The bomber planes used to take off from there and come back. The Americans came first and I had an American boyfriend of course and I had a Canadian boyfriend. They all survived. But my American boyfriend was quite special but I was too young to think of marriage. And he eventually went over to France when they landed over there and then a wave of RAF men came in and eventually I met a young man who I eventually married.

One of the amusing things I think in between air raids and being terribly frightened, I used to sleep under the stairs on a camp bed with a tin helmet on listening to the doodle bugs and the planes going over and the guns firing. We were in direct line coming over from Germany to London at Great Dunmow, plus the airfields all round.

We had a shop as I said and when the sirens went my father used to lock the door and take everybody down into the cellar, which he had reinforced for safety鈥檚 sake, and he would keep everybody there until the 鈥榓ll clear鈥� went. At night we used to go down and I used to sleep in my helmet in a deck chair in the cellar, with some neighbours as well. Of course we used to take our food and drink down with us and so there we used to stay. Dad used to stand on guard outside the door, he was in the Home Guard, but if he was off duty he鈥檇 be guarding us of course and watching everything going over and assessing whether there was anything was going to be dropped fairly near or not. But invariably bombs did drop but not on Dunmow, I think we had one or two incendiaries but nothing more disastrous than that, they landed in fields all round.

I stayed at school until I was 15. I did an extra year. Then I went to work in our shop, tobacconist and confectioners and I stayed there until I felt I wanted to work with other girls, because I was on my own except with my mum and dad. And then I started to work for the War Agricultural Committee. Because when we were 16 we couldn鈥檛 have a job where we wanted it we had to be directed so I had an interview and that was OK. We used to pay the Prisoners of War their weekly money. The Italians used to go by twice a day and of course they tried to flirt with us but we鈥檇 all got boyfriends in the Forces and we gave them short shrift. A bit rude as well I suppose. We used to pay them their wages. And anybody that was a farmer, anything he needed to buy he had to come through the War Agricultural Committee whether it was wire netting, pipes, timber or anything. They had to get permission and permits.

In our office staff we were all fairly young women with boyfriends or husbands in the Forces but we also had two Conscientious Objectors and we gave them what for, never gave them a moments peace. These were men, they objected to going in the Forces, they wouldn鈥檛 fight so they did a menial job in an office which we didn鈥檛 think was a very good idea at all so we didn鈥檛 give them much peace.

We used to have of course lots of dances in the village hall and all the different nationalities used to come. Glenn Miller never actually came but of course we danced to a lot of Glenn Miller music and the RAF bands used to come and that sort of thing.

One thing that always stick in mind as far as mum and dad and the shop was concerned, everything was rationed, sweets and cigarettes. On a Saturday the Vicar used to come in for his little parcel. Now when we got stocks in of cigarettes and sweets my father had a list of regular customers and my mother of course had regular customers and they used to do them up in newspaper, their little share for the week. So when the Vicar used to come in, he used to come in for his chocolate, my father used to make sure he found the best pin up pictures he could in the papers to wrap the Vicars chocolate up in! Whether he ever appreciated that fact I do not know but my father got a bit of a kick out of that!

We had a shop next door to us who was a little caf茅 and occasionally we had a bag of sugar from them or two eggs a week, so that was really something. Then we had another farmer I remember who used to bring us a little butter and eggs and they used to go away with their little bundle of chocolates and cigarettes. And the butcher who was also in the town, he had his bundle every week. My mother used to make me go, well it was voluntary I suppose really, to the butchers every morning before I went to work and all I had to say was, 鈥楥an I have something for dinner please?鈥� Didn鈥檛 say, half a pound of this or half a pound of that, can I have something for dinner and we always had a dinner every day and he always got his chocolates and cigarettes so that worked out very well.

My father鈥檚 sister lived in Ilford, Essex and of course they got a lot of bombing up there and so my mother used to go up about once a year. Now everything was on coupons and being a teenager of course I did want some extra clothes so my aunt used to write to my mother and say, when are you coming to see me? That was the clue, I鈥檝e got some coupons for you. So my mother used to go up to see her for the day and come back with some coupons. And then to get some more coupons we had the inevitable few big families who couldn鈥檛 afford to spend their coupons on sweets and so my mother used to give them sweets for coupons so as I teenager I had a few more dresses and shoes than perhaps some of my friends did. I was a sort of bartering, it wasn鈥檛 black market because we didn鈥檛 deal in anything it was just an exchange rate which helped to keep us going one way or another.

Over the years a lot of people came and went and also the evacuees came to Great Dunmow from Leyton and another town in London. And in those days people from the Town Hall came round and my mother, we鈥檇 got three bedrooms and we had to either take in soldiers or we had to have evacuees, must, we had to. My mother said, 鈥業鈥檓 not having dribbly Londoners coming to live in my home鈥�. Some of them came from very poor families that weren鈥檛 very well looked after. So we had two soldiers living with us, they were two Scottish soldiers and we had a lot of fun actually with them. They stayed until they also were moved on to go over to France. We never did hear from them and I wonder to this day, I wonder if they survived. We were good friends and they appreciated home life and a good clean bed. They benefit and we did our bit.鈥�

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