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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Charles Kay from Crawley Library and has been added to the website on behalf of Mr Gare with his permission and he fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Collecting Foxglove leaves for the war effort

I was eleven when the war broke out in September 1939, and was at school in a village called Ingatestone in Essex.
Starting in 1940 or 1941, I joined the First Ingatestone and Fryerning Scout Troop. Because the government encouraged the recycling of waste paper, we collected paper from mainly large houses on the outskirts of the village. The paper was sold to a company who processed waste paper and the money went to the Red Cross to buy parcels for British prisoners of war.
Later in the war, we picked rose hips to make rose hip syrup which was a good source of vitamin C for babies.
There was a need for foxglove leaves from which a substance could be extracted to treat heart conditions. The grounds of the school contained large numbers of foxglove (Digitalis) plants and we were given the use of an old stable to dry the leaves before they could be sent to a drug manufacturer. We used to string the leaves using a bodkin to thread the leaves onto the pieces of string, which were hung the length of the stable to dry in the air. At any time there would be lines of leaves all hanging up to dry.

The Blitz, the V-weapons and life after school.

I experienced conditions in London during the Blitz and on leaving school I worked in London when the V1s were landing. More frightening were the V2 rockets because, due to the speed at which they travelled, you had no warning. Learning much later of the attack on Dresden, I wondered why I had not been aware of the bombing of Dresden at the time. It could be that I was preoccupied with the V2s which were still landing up to March 1945.
After school, I worked in a dairy laboratory, testing dairy products. The lab was blasted by a nearby V2 one night and the next morning I was sweeping the street outside. Workmen came, probably from the local council, to fit oiled silk over the wooden window frames to replace the glass and we had to work in a strange amber light!
After about a year I decided to change jobs and went to work in the laboratory at Charing Cross Hospital in Agar Street, just off the Strand. A week after I started came VE day! All the laboratory staff had VE day off and I went down to Whitehall, where I saw Churchill and some of the Cabinet. Churchill made a short speech from a government building, but we weren’t really listening, such was the euphoria. I remember one man heading a procession near the Houses of Parliament and he was carrying a notice reading ‘Remove Hats, Outer Clothing and Boots’!
I was called up for military service when I was eighteen, in August 1946. Some of the intake had done war work throughout the war but were still expected to do military service after their essential war work had finished. They were very indignant that six years wasn’t enough!

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