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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Sheila Ledgard, and has been added to the site with the author’s permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
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I went to live at Middleton-on-the-Wold in 1935 and lived there until I married in1956. I was at my uncle’s farm at Walton Grange, near Driffield, harvesting, and loading the shelves of corn from stocks to a wagon (horse drawn), when a German plane flew overhead and machine-gunned us. He turned round and was going to have another go at us but we ran like mad to the shelter of an overhanging hedge. So the bullets were wasted. The poor horse was left standing in the field; he was not hurt.

My father was the head teacher at Middleton; he did a lot for the war effort and helped with the harvest. He was in the Observer Corps as an Air Raid Warden, and Evacuee Billeting Officer and was in charge of the food store. This was a cache of tinned foods.

If the Germans had landed or we were cut off, various people were given jobs. I was a runner. I could run long distances and I knew the local footpaths, so I could contact the other villages. I was 12 when the war started. My father, as head master, had a vision of getting a playing field for the village. This he did before he retired. He was also the chairman of the Parish Council. My father and my mother managed to get electric lights to the village streets. Both my parents were on the Parish Council and the P.C.C. (Parochial Church Council). My mother was a District Councillor too, but this was in the days before allowances became payable, so she made her way to Driffield at her own expense.

Getting to school was a problem towards the end of the war. I went in a milk van at 6.30 a.m. to eventually arrive at Driffield Station. We were late for school and had to leave in the afternoon after ¼ hour of the afternoon session. I never did get a physics lesson until the Red House was repaired and I could become a boarder. Whilst petrol rationing was so light, my father and another father took 4 girls to Driffield Station to catch the train (called the Malton Dodger). We came home by a train that stopped at Middleton Station.

During one winter (42 — 43), we were off school 6 weeks, snowed in. It was lovely and sunny by day, perfect sledging weather. All roads to the village were blocked. Men reported to the P.O. with a spade to get their dole money and they had to dig us out. The wind blew and the snow filled in the roads again. Living in the Wolds, everyone kept in a good supply of flour and yeast. Soda bread was the order of the day.

Soldiers set off with stretchers, walking on top of the frozen snow (it was hedge height and more), to get yeast. A passenger train got stuck in Enthorpe Cutting in the snow. An engine was sent to get it out, but that one got stuck too. A snow plough was sent and that was also stuck. The passengers had to walk to civilization. When the roads were opened, the snow walls at the side of the road were as high as a double decker bus. Sitting upstairs, all we could see was snow.

PR-BR

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