大象传媒

Owen and Sheila Neal (nee Jones) story of WW2 from our book of family history.
Sheila鈥檚 story.
I was 7 and had no concept of war, but my father must have been very distraught having served in WW1 and survived with shocking injuries. I slept in a twin bed with my sister Frances (See Frances Bush) and remember being terrified that the Germans would be coming up the garden path with guns. Frances continued to sleep and as always I crept into my brother Kenneth鈥檚 bed. I told him all my fears and he said 鈥楢ll would be well鈥�. I believed him. Little did I know then that he would be killed, with the sinking of MV Seaforth in 1941, at the age of 17.
My father was out every night with the ARP and their 鈥楶ost鈥� was in a cellar of the local chapel. Kenneth was a messenger for the ARP and my mother joined a women鈥檚 group who were to set up a 鈥榬est centre鈥� in the local school. Our windows had something like lace curtains, beige in colour, stuck on to prevent glass splinters from flying in case of bomb damage. We all had to carry a gas mask, in a cardboard box with a piece of string to go over our shoulder, and have drill in its use. We all had identity bracelets with a name and number. Mine was KEOX 60/5 which is now my National Health number and officers are surprised that I know it. The letters identified the area and the numbers the family and position in the family. I.e. I was the 5th member of the family.
Kenneth鈥檚 first voyage in 1940 was on the Mary Kingsley, an old ship, and because it had been heavily bombed during its passage near Liverpool Kenneth was allowed extra leave. He returned to sea on the new Seaforth. On the return voyage the Seaforth was sunk without trace. The Mary Kingsley continued throughout the war. I was on my way to school when we saw a long brown envelope on the doormat. My mother knew immediately what it was and sent me to fetch a close neighbour. My mother never cried for 12 months, whilst my father broke down frequently. NOTE:- we were reminded about this when we read Ted Egan鈥檚 book The Land Downunder and played the CDs which came with it. The 'Song For Grace' on the 2nd CD tells the story of an Australian family in WW1 and it is a song that should be played every Remembrance Day.
Many of Kenneth鈥檚 school friends were killed during the war.
One spate of air raids always started about 7.00pm and my father used to say 鈥楬ave I time to shave before I go to the Post?鈥� However on one occasion when they were on patrol there was a loud thump and two of the patrol dived to the ground. They had been in WW1 and thought of mortar shells. We lived near the railway and my father burst out laughing. It was the signal changing.
One day we all rushed to the railway bridge to se a train full of soldiers. Soon we saw lines of men, headed by a sergent, who knocked on every door and leaving soldiers. These had come from Dunkirk and two were billeted with us. Once a day they had to report to a headquarters set up on the 鈥榤oor鈥�, an open space near the church. They slept for most of the next days on the lawn and my parents made a great deal of fuss of them.
During the height of the London Blitz we had two evacuees, they had slept for a week in the underground tube stations. My mother was very busy at the Rest Centre and was very touched by a young girl from Lambeth whose twins were born in a tube station.
As well as being in the ARP my father was on a committee of milk retailers, of which he was one, to sort out zoning to save petrol. Each retailer was allocated zones so that his rounds were as localised as possible but each was given areas which meant that income of each retailer was as near as possible identical. In fact this zoning had considerable effect on my father鈥檚 milk rounds for many years after the war. He still had three separate 鈥榬ounds鈥� within Halifax until he retired in 1965.
After D Day we had a map on the wall showing the advance of the Allied troops. As each POW camp was released my parents were always hopeful that Kenneth would be found. My uncle, on his farm, had both Italian and German POW鈥檚 working and these were well treated. My parents found this hard to come to terms with.
It was only after my mother鈥檚 death that I found all the letters she had written, and received, to try and find out information about Kenneth. One of the letters sent to Kenneth was returned. Stamped boldly on the outside was 鈥楲EFT SHIP, RETURN TO SENDER鈥�!! We still have letters written by Kenneth during his two voyages and these are a marvellous record of his brief time at sea.
I had an American pen friend, we still write to each other, and she sent parcels of clothes etc for us. I well remember one of the dresses and actually saw one exactly like it recently when a relative of Owen, in America, sent a picture of her mother and soldier father in the 1940鈥檚. The dress was exactly like the one sent to me.
How my mother managed to create meals from the rations I cannot imagine, but we never went hungry.
OWEN鈥橲 STORY
My story differs in many ways from Sheila鈥檚, perhaps because I was a year younger but also because I lived in a fairly remote area of Cornwall and my parents ran a village shop.
My first real recollection was rather strange. My great aunt lived next door to us and she was one of the very few people to have a telephone. Her name was Emily Knight, but was always called Aunty Knight. Her telephone number was Nanpean 45 and when, at the beginning of the war this was changed to Nanpean 245 I remember thinking 鈥淗ow did Hitler know my aunt鈥檚 telephone number to get it changed?鈥�
The shop was a typical village shop, selling everything, groceries, paraffin and animal foodstuff with which we supplied all the village and local farms. Nearly every house had a shed and a small yard at the bottom of the garden. In this shed would be kept a pig which would be slaughtered, when there was an 鈥楻鈥� in the month and salted for bacon.
The war years, and until rationing finished in 1954, caused a lot of problems for shopkeepers, but for us I believe it brought in many extra customers because smaller shops than us, and some were in a room of a house, could not handle rationed goods. Customers had to register with a shop and usually handed their ration books to the shopkeeper for safekeeping. Customers were allowed to change their shop but this meant that they did not get the 鈥榣ittle extras鈥� which we sometimes managed to get for 鈥榦ur regulars鈥�. The appropriate section of the ration book was cancelled each week using an indelible pencil. We only had one customer with a cheque book and he always filled it out with such a pencil. Some sections of the ration book had to be cut out as purchases were made, e.g. tinned meat flour and bread. These 鈥榗oupons鈥� had to be saved and counted at the end of each month and sent to the Food Office in St Austell. The bread coupons were about 录鈥� square and had to be picked up with a pin!! We always checked and rechecked our coupon count each month because there was a threat of imprisonment if it was wrong. On one occasion we had a letter back saying that we had put in too large a number, they only checked randomly, and that since this number was the same that we had put in over the last several months we were likely for prosecution. The numbers for the next months were exactly the same as we had always submitted, our customers never really changed, and so we believe that the Food Office had mislaid a large number of our coupons. It was a very worrying time and needless to say the numbers were checked many times, by us and officials.
The colour of ration books depended on the age of the person, green for up to five, blue up to sixteen and beige for over sixteen. On the very rare occasion when bananas were available they were only supplied to green ration book holders. As I remember it the standard rations per person per week were:- 2oz of butter, 2oz of margarine, 8oz of cooking fat, 1oz of cheese, 4oz of bacon and 4oz of tea every fortnight. Butter came in 陆 lb packs and there was no way we could weigh out 4x2oz from this, so we had to cut the pack into 4 鈥榚qual鈥� portions. We never had any complaints. 8oz of sugar was allowed per week and these days this seems a lot, but at that time most people took sugar in tea and did their own baking of cakes and made jam from wild blackberries and 鈥榚rts鈥� (worttleberries). Jam was 2oz per week but that could be replaced by sugar if you made your own jam. Meat was 1/-鈥榮 worth a week and this was usually spent on cheap cuts. We only ever saw the breasts of lamb, never the leg or shoulder. Those were reserved for the armed services.
We occasionally had salted cod, from the Newfoundland cod banks, now extinct. Very few customers would buy it. It was like a board and had to be soaked in water for 24 hours. This meant that our family had to eat the cod allowance for the shop, so as not to waste it.
The reason for nearly every villager keeping a pig, during the war, was that it could be kept on scraps and the barley allowance of 14lbs per month. These pigs were grown as fat as was possible, up to 20 score (200lbs) nearly 90 kg because for every pig killed only one ration book鈥檚 worth of bacon was cancelled for a year. So an allowance of 4oz per week, or 14lb per year, was transferred into a pig and of course the loins, and only the loins were pork. The excess fat, up to 2鈥� thick was removed and salted for 鈥榝at鈥� bacon and all the fat from the inside was converted to lard and this would provide cooking fat for a year, if the pig was large enough. A certain amount of 鈥榠llegal鈥� exchange was carried on between neighbours. It was illegal to exchange pork but we had an arrangement that the killing of the pigs was spread out over a few months between a few friends so that equivalent weights of loin pork could be exchanged. The killing was by a licence from the local policeman and was carried out by my uncle, a very skilled slaughterman.
Saffron, made from the stigmas of certain types of crocus grown mainly in Sicily, was not available and Cornish saffron cake is famous. We had bought a large tin of saffron before the war and each Christmas we were able to provide our regular customers with a dram of saffron, enough to make a cake, and some dried fruit. The smallest weight we had for the large brass scales in our shop was 录 oz and there were 4 drams to 录 oz. We therefore had to divide the strands of this amount of saffron into 4 equal amounts. Again we never had any complaints, the customers were delighted to receive enough to make a cake. My grandfather loved golden syrup, to go with Cornish cream, and so at Christmas and also his birthdays we made sure that my grandmother was supplied with both syrup and saffron. Saffron is the most expensive herb and is far more expensive than gold.
Following the evacuation of Dunkirk, which I really knew nothing about, there was a spectacular occurrence in the village. Hundreds of soldiers in a very long column, well over a mile, came through the village. The villagers forfeited tea and sugar rations and the soldiers were handed cups of sweetened tea as they marched. Uncle Gifford, with his horse and cart, travelled backwards and forwards with large enamel jugs, making sure that the soldiers were amply supplied. He ended up nearly at Nanpean, a mile away, handing out and collecting the cups. Where they had come from or where they were going I have no idea. My uncle Floyd, Gifford鈥檚 youngest brother, was still missing in France. He escaped from Cherbourg nearly three weeks later. Floyd was in the RAMC and had stayed behind to look after wounded soldiers but managed to escape by boat. He also escaped, after being captured in Crete, by walking over the mountains, in May when conditions were very hot, with some civilians and a few soldiers. He was picked up by HMS Intrepid when he swam out to the ship. He was captured at Leros and once again escaped, in a Greek fishing boat with two other officers, and was landed in Turkey by the fisherman. Little did he know that his ancestor, Mary Broad, had escaped from Botany Bay 3,500 miles in a rowing boat to Timor in 1791.
Our house was in the direct line for German planes flying across for the attempted bombing of St Eval aerodrome. There were three church towers exactly lining the route. A false aerodrome was set up on the Goss moors near the aerodrome and this was continually bombed, but I do not believe the actual aerodrome was hit. One night Lord Haw Haw announced that 鈥榓 Cornish factory had been hit by the bombers鈥�. In fact bombs were dropped near a gipsy camp that made clothes pegs. The gipsies sold shrapnel, 1d a piece, from the bombs. I am sure that the shrapnel included most of their own scrap iron.
My father was in the St Johns Ambulance Brigade and organised first aid throughout the village. Ladies in the village were trained how to deal with injuries and mustard gas burns. The children were given frequent rehearsals as to what to do and where to go in emergency.
We often had bombs hiked round the villages on army trucks and we were encouraged to stick savings stamps on them. The bombs were then supposed to be dropped on Germany.
Our Grammar School was at St Austell, 5 miles away, and we had a bus that took us and workers to the town. The buses were rather old and when it rained, which it frequently did, we had to use umbrellas in the bus and avoid most of the seats that were wet because the roof was of canvas and leaked. On one occasion, whilst going up the hill to Nanpean from Currian, the driver had to get out and recover and refit a spark plug that had fallen out on to the road. Needless to say we were frequently late for school.
We were in an annex to the main building and the desk for the whole class was one very large steel table with steel grids on the sides. We had no chairs, so sat on the top of this table with our books alongside us and wrote on our knees. If needed, in case of bombing, we would all have to get under the table. For the main school there were small Anderson shelters and after the war senior pupils used to see how many juniors they could pack into one, that last ones in were thrown on the top of the others. The final act was to throw in a sulphur bomb.
Both Italian and German POW鈥檚 worked in the local clay pits, preparing them for operation after the war. The Italians wove beautiful sewing baskets, with lids, from the willows that grew in abundance round the pits. These were sold for them in our shop. The German soldiers wove hemp into soles for sandals with canvas tops.
Towards D Day all the villages in our area were 鈥榠nvaded鈥� by American soldiers. Coloured soldiers came in first and set up all the camps and later all the soldiers were given a good welcome and frequent social activities were organised.
VE and VJ days were celebrated by all the children going round the village with uncle Gifford鈥檚 wagon, no horse attached, and collecting anything that would burn. All this material we carried to the top of our local clay tip, Dorothy, and we had celebrationary fires.

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