´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Caroline Drodge of Leicestershire Library Services, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I lived in Barwell during the war and attended Nuneaton High School, a girls’ school. I travelled there by bus. During air raids we ran across the fields into air aid shelters.
My mother came from New Zealand and we had a lot over men from New Zealand forces recuperating on our house. One air force man was badly wounded and stayed with us a long time. He received the DSO. Many stayed in touch, quite a lot were subsequently killed.
There was a training school for pilots at Desford aerodrome. You could hear Tiger Moths on Saturday mornings, circling and practising. One Mosquito plane skimmed close to the road.
Food parcels used to arrive from New Zealand. One was a foot square, sewn in a linen bag, and contained a ton of shortbread. We also had things like passion juice. One of the men was in the army and had his ration of petrol. He was repatriated eventually.
After Dunkirk there was a constant convoy of lorries at my house. Mum and I set out a table and dished out tea.
When I was 16 years I joined the Red Cross. I was at a station in Hinckley dealing with minor cases. Every Sunday I walked from Barwell to Hinckley. I helped with the wounded and in the kitchen.
After Burma 2 New Zealanders came to recuperate. They were skeletal and stayed a long time. They took years to recover and kept having flashbacks.
Other soldiers were billeted around Barwell.
During air raids we all got under the stairs. One time we heard a bomb dropping, getting nearer. It fell in a field in Earl Shilton and we expected it to be us next, but it didn’t happen.
Americans from the 82nd Division were stationed at the George (now
‘Reflex’) on the Market Square in Hinckley. They came to us for a bath once a week.
My father worked as a hosiery engineer before the war and was sent to New Zealand for work. He met my mother there. He returned home and she followed him. She spent 6 weeks on the sea journey, and knew no one else in England. They married in the United Reform Chapel the day after she arrived, shortly before war broke out. Lots of villagers came to watch the wedding, as she was foreign.
Air raid sirens went at night. My father was an air raid warden. We had an open space over the road from our house and used to watch the lights and bombs over Coventry.
There was a youth club in Barwell, and we used to ask the soldiers to dances. Coming back it was pitch black during the blackout and you couldn’t see anything.
Petrol was rationed and most people couldn’t use their cars. We kept our’s mobile as the New Zealand soldiers staying with us had a petrol allowance. Everyone had ration cards, including the soldiers. Some people kept pigs and hens. We grew runner beans and salted them. We kept eggs in a bucket in eising glass liquid. It solidified to look like salt to preserve the eggs. We also had dried egg to mix with, for example, spam.
We grew many vegetables: peas, potatoes, onions, parsnips, and spinach. We picked berries in the autumn.
My sister went to Hinckley Grammar School, which was mixed. I went to Nuneaton High School, a girls’ school. I was in legs irons, following polio, so my parents thought it better for me. Nuneaton suffered some damage. People were hurt and buildings flattened. We used to get telegrams relating to the soldiers at our house. There was one I was quite fond of when I was 18. We had a telegram to say his Mosquito had been shot down and he was missing.

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