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Wartime Memories

My first memories of the Second World War was in 1940 as an eleven-year old, seeing trains arriving in Friary Station with injured and exhausted men from the beaches of Dunkirk. All were dishevelled and many had bandages on wounds and arms in slings. There was no medical accommodation available at the time the wounded being too numerous for the accommodation present in the City. They were taken to schools, and my school, Salisbury Road School, was converted to hospital wards. As a child myself, and other pupils, would go each day to the gate situated in Seymour Avenue, where those soldiers who could walk would ask us to get cigarettes, chocolate or lemonade at the Tuck Shop, and they would pay. This lasted for several weeks and then the patients were transferred to appropriate hospitals. However our school then became a place where we children were put to make nets, either for the fishing industry or as basic nets for camouflage. We really felt we were doing something for the war effort.

I was the eldest of three children at the time (a brother of eight and a sister of five). A second sister arrived in 1941. We children had our schooling interrupted very dramatically on the 13th January 1941. We had been taken to the pictures in the afternoon to see the film 'Gasbags' with the Crazy Gang. However, on returning home, and after having our tea, the sirens sounded at approximately 7.30pm and we were hastily donned in our siren suits of blue serge, and with my mother and father we took refuge in our pantry, under the stairs of our house. It was not long before the first bombs started to fall and we were eventually blown out of our home with windows and doors falling in around us. The bomb that did the damage hit the railway bridge behind our house and it is believed, even after all this time, that it was the only railway bridge to be hit during the whole war. I must add that this occurred in Knighton Road, the junction end and very near to Tothill Park. As a family, we were taken to the air raid shelter built into the bank at the children's section of the park.

This was one of the first heavy raids on the City. The blitzes came in the following March and April. However, we as a family had been unofficially evacuated by my father to a very generous farmer and his wife, Mr and Mrs Eastley. We went to their farm some three miles from Bere Alston, on the road to Tavistock, called Lower Gawton. My mother expecting her fourth baby was glad to leave our bomb-damaged home, which incidentally included our corner shop, for the comparative peace of the countryside. Our sister was born at Lower Gawton Farm in July 1941.

We had half the farmhouse and in our kitchen was a huge range called 'The Hoe'. My mother made it shine beautifully and we were content with our lot. My father travelled on a bicycle to the railway station at Bere Alston and caught a train to Plymouth to hitch up his horse and cart and proceed to sell fruit and fish off the back of it in and around Milehouse and up to St Budeaux. His stables were in Stilman Street on the Barbican, so this was always a marathon effort on his part to earn a living to keep his growing family and this he did most successfully.

Sad to say this blissful time was cruelly shattered for us as Lower Gawton Farm also felt the might of the Luftwaffe. Bombs fell on the cherry orchard situated directly in front of the farmhouse, in 1943 or thereabouts, when German bombers thought they were attacking troop camps. But the cherry trees in full blossom and shining white in the moonlight gave the impression of tents. My mother decided to come back to Knighton Road for a spell but could not stand the many daylight raids and we were then officially evacuated back to the village of Bere Alston with a little old lady, Mrs Stansbury, in Cornwall Street. I should add that whilst living at Lower Gawton Farm my brother and sister and I used to walk all the way (some three miles) to school in the village. So we had made many friends by the time we went back to school.

Eventually we returned to Knighton Road as the war began to come to its eventual end, with me having attended a shorthand/typing Academy and secured a job in Tavistock.

I remember the many American soldiers billeted in the area prior to the D-Day invasion of France, and who we would not see again.

We were in our home in Plymouth as a close and loving family and we eventually had the war damage of our house repaired. My mother re-opened her shop and my father continued to serve his customers as he had always done. I forgot to mention he had to do his stint in the Home Guard, but that is another story.

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