大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Dunstable At War Team on behalf of Harold R Perkins and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Auxiliary Farm Labour/Digging for Victory

At the Dunstable Grammar School there was a grassy area behind the swimming pool. Normally it was used by the boarders for ad hoc games and included the firing range for the rifle butts at the back. At the beginning of the war air-raid shelters were built there. They consisted of underground corridors cut in the chalk and covered with mounds of spoil. If the air-raid warning sounded, which it did over frequently in the very early days of the war, we all trooped out from the classrooms and into the shelters, where we sat on long wooden benches. There we were supposed to continue our lessons, but really not much work was done. Of course, we were all obliged to carry our gas masks at all times (there were penalties for being without). Mine was in a tin canister with a screw lid. It survived the war.

In the summer of 1940 the school had been asked to provide senior boys to assist in gathering the harvest. I was one of a group of volunteers who helped at a local farm owned by an 鈥極ld Boy鈥� (former pupil) of Dunstable Grammar School. Much extra land had been put under cultivation and he was reported to be in charge of some 3000 acres 鈥� a huge area. The first part of the holiday was wet nearly every day and harvesting was difficult. After that the weather improved, and we were occupied every weekday from about 9 am to 6 pm. There was 鈥淒ouble Summer Time鈥� as I recall.

Each day we cycled to the farm near Toddington, Bedfordshire and were detailed our tasks by the farm foreman. We were taught how to gather the sheaves of corn that had been produced by a reaper/binder (horse or tractor drawn). The sheaves were packed upright in tent-like groups of six or eight, called locally 鈥榮hocks鈥� (in some areas 鈥榮tooks鈥� was used). It is worth noting that the headlands and other parts inaccessible to the reaper were cut by the foreman using a scythe. He then hand bound the product into sheaves, to be shocked along with the rest. Some of the fields were enormous; I remember one near Leagrave that was over 100 acres.

The shocks were left a few days to dry in the sun (if any, too much rain meant that corn started growing on in the ears and would become useless). Then the sheaves were collected and taken to make a corn-cock, a round structure about 10 to 15 feet across and 15 feet high at the centre. For this purpose we used horse-drawn carts with extensions called 鈥榣adders鈥� at the front over the horse and at the rear to enable a larger load to be carted. The horse was led by an 鈥榦gee鈥� boy, an urchin of about 9 or 10 years old. The sheaves were loaded by us, being pitchforked up to a loader (another one of us), onto the cart itself. He arranged the sheaves to give the best stable cartload. Once at the corn-cock site, often in a corner of the same field, the sheaves were again pitchforked and placed to build the corn-cock. At first, the foreman did this but later we learned the trade and he was left with his specialist job of thatching the finished structure with straw. It was thus safely stored to await the availability of threshing capacity.

Threshing was done with a red-painted threshing machine, powered by a tractor fitted with a flywheel and connected by leather belting. Once more our task was to pitchfork the now dry sheaves onto the machine. I rather think a farmhand cut the strings. The threshed corn (barley, oats or wheat according to season) came down a chute at the side into a large sack, which when full of wheat weighed 2 cwt (100 kg). There was one farmhand who could lift such sacks single-handed. The straw was disgorged by the machine and had to be loaded onto a separate baler before being carted to a straw stack for later use.

At the end of the summer holidays in 1940 we were allowed a week of afternoons off from school so that the whole harvest could be gathered in.

The domestic side of our working days was simple. We took a drink in a bottle and sandwiches for lunch. Incidentally, no one wore sunglasses and barrier cream was unheard of. We just became browner or more freckled. At the end of the week we were given our pay packet 鈥� for each hour actually worked - for those under 14 years 6d; for the older boys, 8d. It seemed a good reward in those days.

Before the war my father had as a hobby, a smallholding at the back of our house in Luton Road, Dunstable, where he kept chickens. His main employment was at Vauxhall Motors in Luton. When the war began, in response to national requests for all possible food production, he extended his activities. He started keeping pigs, fed upon 鈥楾ottenham Pudding鈥�, made from food wastage and delivered to the house in dustbins. It smelt pretty foul in hot weather. He also kept turkeys and in due course, bees to produce honey and to ensure fertilization of the fruit trees he had planted. I had the task of doing some of the digging, picking fruit and extracting honey. Supplies of locally produced food were very popular with the neighbours. However, the main supply of eggs, bacon and ham went for central distribution via the rationing system.

Fire Watching

After the initial air attacks on Britain, the government introduced a programme of fire-watching in an attempt to put out fires caused by incendiary bombs (mainly magnesium) before buildings were set alight. The mode of action was a bucket of water and a stirrup pump. We knew this would not extinguish magnesium but the spread of fire could be limited, perhaps. Another important function was to alert the authorities to exactly where the bombs had fallen.

I served in the group that protected the Priory Church in Dunstable, belonging to the Friday gang. Every Friday for a couple of years until I left for university in late 1942 I was a fire-watcher. Our base was the Parish Hall, which, unlike the church itself, was blacked out. About four of us slept on camp beds, patrolling either for practice or in earnest if an air-raid warning sounded.

It was a strange experience to go round the empty church at night, with only torches and to climb the tower and learn how to reach the limits of the great roof area, most at risk if bombs had fallen. I can remember, probably in 1941, being at the top of the church tower and seeing an orange glow in the southern sky. It was London burning, thirty miles away.

Each Saturday morning we were greeted by the Rector on his way to celebrate Holy Communion in the church. Holy Communion was celebrated there at least once every day throughout the war. Because blackout problems made Sunday evensong impossible in the darkest months, the Rector introduced a service of Compline, held at 7 pm in the blacked-out Parish Hall.

After a night of fire-watching it was home to breakfast, and then back for Saturday morning school.

The subject of fire-watching calls to mind the bizarre camouflage system that I remember seeing at Chaul End and Caddington. It was used to protect Luton and its vehicle factories from aerial attack, from about 1941/2 onwards. All the lanes on the surrounding hills were furnished with innumerable oil burners. They were cylindrical and black, with a wider part below for the fuel and a narrower chimney above, the whole rising to about one metre. There must have been hundreds of them altogether. They burned heavy oil and poured out black smoke. On clear nights, when there was a 鈥榖ombers moon鈥�, they where all lit and the hollow in which Luton lies was completely covered by a pall of smoke. Whether for this or some other reason, Luton was never seriously bombed during the whole war.

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