大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by CSV Storygatherer Lucy Thomas of Callington U3A on behalf of Marjorie Mahoney nee Watson. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

Part 2

STALKING THE HARE AND SHOOTING THE SWAN!

Acquiring food of any sort figured very largely in the way of life and it didn't matter if you were working at the time. Brunet was really the star of the show as far as gathering of supplies went. He'd got it down to a fine art. He would plonk me on the side of a field and tell me, on pain of death, to be very, very quiet while I watched him. Of course, being tall he could see a lot more than normal people because he could see further. As I remember it, there was a grass field waiting for it to be cut for hay. At about off-centre of the middle, the grass was slightly flattened and Brunet said there was a hare so he started to walk very slowly in ever-decreasing circles and the nearer he got to the hare, the slower he went. By this time, the hare had absolutely flattened itself to the ground, put its ears back and was trying to pretend it wasn't there because hares only run if you tread on them. Otherwise they much preferred to keep out of sight and be extremely quiet. Brunet had got all this beautifully worked out and when he'd got to almost stopping walking pace, (if you can visualize that), he'd drop on the hare, pick it up and give it a sideswipe with the back of his large, strong hand, break its neck and there was dinner. This was another way we got food.

Father must have got to trust Brunet implicitly because much against the law, highly illegal, he used to loan Brunet his twelve-bore and one cartridge on the understanding with a little lecture before. "I trust you Brunet and I expect you to bring it back exactly when I say so. You know, you're not going missing and you must use it and be sensible." He never let Father down and he also never came back empty-handed. One time, I heard about this rather than saw it, because, again, it was totally illegal, poor Brunet not knowing of any better and being an Italian and out to feed the boys, came back with a swan. Of course, one's not allowed to kill or eat swans now in this day and age or even in that day and age. In Henry VIII's time yes, but not now, no. Father was horrified, poor Brunet was mortified and the end of it was that Father dug a hole and buried the swan. That was the end of that, it was never mentioned again.

NETTING A SPARROW OR TWO?

Tonio's speciality was netting sparrows. He used to get some cotton thread off Mother - goodness knows how many reels she went through. She must have had a lot in stock because obviously that was rationed as well. He used to thread it through the stacked sheaves in the wheat or straw stack, or whatever, and thread it to make a sort of net. The sparrows used to go in and feed and then he used to beat the sheaves with a stick and the sparrows used to fly out into the net and get trapped, and of course he used to dispatch them. I'm not quite sure how he cooked the sparrows. It was one of the things that I didn't find out which was unusual because I seemed to be seeing and hearing lots of things I shouldn't.

There was another thing the Italians used to look forward to. They were actually there eighteen months, so this happened twice while they were there. The Ministry of Agriculture used to issue a permit to farmers so that they legally kill one pig for their own use. Of course, as a child of three and four, it really wasn't the sort of thing I should be seeing. My parents were hardworking farmers and they hadn't time to really totally supervise me and me, being me, if I thought there was anything interesting going on, I used to keep my head down, keep very quiet, hide and watch everything that I shouldn't see. I used to watch a pig-killing from beginning to end from it being ushered in to the old wash house, where it was dispatched to watching it being scalded and scraped to get all the bristles off and the skin cleaned. Then it used to be hoisted up on to a beam. It was a wooden bar with hooks in, as far as I can remember. And then it used to be gutted and that's when my mother came in because all the chittlings had to be scalded, scraped and cleaned for sausage skins and, as we said in those days, "everything on the farm of the pig was used but the squeak".

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