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This story was submitted to the people war Website by a volunteer from Tiverton Museum of Mid Devon Life on behalf of Mary Chudley.

MARY CHUDLEY

Born in 1928 Kingsbridge. Came to Silverton aged 15, evacuated when Americans took over village in South Devon.

They had 15 days to evacuate village. Went to Ashprington first and then to Silverton. Met husband in Silverton and were married for 48 years. He died in 1997 (April).

Remembers being in East Alington at outbreak of war.
Bombing of Kingsbridge
In Land Army for 3 years.
Changes in Silverton — growth, shops, entertainments, carnivals, bands, hall, dances.

Also I have lived in Silverton since the age of fifteen. Before that in the Slapton Sands area. I can remember the Americans coming and all the mules and donkeys trailing along the road, with all the packages on them. And then there was a massive load of jeeps and different things came along and they all came up our road and went on the way to Slapton Sands. And I was only a child then but I can just vaguely remember it. And then we had to evacuate and we had six weeks to get out. Mother and father didn’t have nowhere to go, so the Council put us in a house at Ashrington near Totnes and they put us into a flea pit. The house was absolutely filthy and there was fleas and all sorts there. And she was expecting her ninth baby and she was not at all well. Then she had a miscarriage and lost that baby. Well then, after that we all left the village and we all went off from there. And then we went back and then we ended up here in Silverton to live and I’ve been here ever since. But when it comes to during the war, I can remember more about during the war that I can the evacuation because it was all done so sudden and we all had to get going, you know, we didn’t have five minutes to breathe, sort of.

The Americans moved into our houses and after it was all over Mum and Dad went back to visit and they had left the dartboard in the kitchen where they used to play darts. They never moved it. But then, after that, we didn’t go back because father got a job here. The harmer he was working with bought the farm up here, to Silverton. We stayed in silverton after that and that was it.

After sixty years we had the sixty years anniversary. We all went down to Slapton then to the memorial service. We had a big marquee and we all had a marvelous meal given to us in the marquee. And then after that we all came back home again. I had a nasty experience with enemy aircraft. It was 64 years ago last January my brother was born. Mother went through an awful time with him. And they were bombing Plymouth at the time and they came over and they used to come down our valley and come straight at us. And we could hear the old Jerry aeroplanes because they always went err-err, err-err, and we could hear these old engines and they bombed Plymouth and the bombed Kingsbridge. My aunt and uncle had a farm, Borough Farm, near Kingsbridge, and they bombed that, incendiary bombs and big high explosive bombs and everything, it was really terrible. And my brother, oldest brother, came to see mother and he couldn’t see her because she was giving birth and so then he decided to take us all up the top of the hill to look across to Plymouth and we could see all the barrage balloons, all the searchlights and everything and all the bombing, and we could see the bombs actually coming out of the aeroplanes going into Plymouth. When they bombed Plymouth they came back around and bombed Kingsbridge as well. That was pretty nasty. On Saturday mornings I used to go into Kingsbridge to take mother’s grocery order in. My friend and I walked to Kingsbridge one morning, we walked 5 mile. WE got into Kingsbridge and we were going to the pictures. We met some boys and we decided to go off with the boys instead of going to the pictures. So we went off with the boys and as we got to the top of the hill, Fore Street in Kinsgbridge, the siren went. So we were pushed into the air raid shelter in the Town Hall. So we didn’t go very far with the boys! We were in the air raid shelter and playing cards and doing all sorts of different things. And after the all-clear went we came out and said: We’ve got to go home now else mother and they’ll be worried about us. So we started walking down and awe had to go down the bottom of Fore Street hill and turn around to go up over Bell Hill to go home. And between Fore Street hill and Bell Hill the picture was. We went to go past it and the picture house was flat and all the children that were in there — and there about 30-40 children there that morning and they were all killed. And I could have been one of them. But being naughty I went off with the boys and it saved my life. My mother would have killed me if she knew what we were up to!

Another nasty experience was with enemy aircraft that came over and actually machine-gunned us. It was one afternoon. I can’t remember the date or the day, but me and my little brother, which I just said was born, was in the garden. He was about 18 months old and this wretched aeroplane came over and started machine-gunning. I ran under a bush and grabbed my little brother and took him with me and we stayed under this bush. My mother was indoors with the other baby she’d got then, another little boy, and she went under the stairs because she was terrified and she was worried where I was. She knew I was in the garden but she didn’t know where I was. And I ended up under this bush. They machine-gunned right down through the valley and our roof of our cottage was like a colander. There was all these holes where the machine bullets hit the roof. And then they went straight on into Kingsbridge and then a bomber came across and he started bombing Kingsbridge in the middle of the afternoon. Another brother was at Kingsbridge Primary school then. They were playing Home Guard out in the playground. And he was the head of them and he got them all down on their knees and they all followed him and crawled into school out of the way of the bombing and the machine-gunning.

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