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Mercy Vaughan

I was born on a farm outside Ludlow and was part of the Women’s Timber corps. My mother used to run the village shop and I remember her going into Ludlow to fetch the food for the shop and measuring out the ration portions. Alcohol was not very easy to come by so people used to brew their own. One favourite was potato wine that tasted like whiskey. One of the boys in the village was to have a 21st birthday party. His mother had been making the potato wine for two years for the occasion. The day of the party came and everyone joined in. Things were okay until the next morning when at about ten o’clock the cows were being very noisy in the fields having not been milked, but there was no sign of the men. Eventually they were found asleep in a Nissan hut.

The other favourite was damson wine, but this could be temperamental and on one occasion one of the farmers’ wives had made several bottles and was storing them in the dairy. During the night they heard a lot popping only to find the following morning all the corks had come out and the whole dairy was stained red.

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