大象传媒

I was born on April 14th 1933 so when the war begun I was about six and a half years old. I lived with my sister Joan, my Mum 鈥� Constance Clarke, my Grandad Frank Hewitt, my Grandma Mary Ellen Hewitt and my Mum鈥檚 brother Uncle Den at Glebe Farm, Glentham. We had about 100 acres.

I suppose really that we were too young to understand what was happening 鈥� my sister Joan was 18 months younger than me. We went to Glentham School and had to walk there every day 鈥� about a mile. I can clearly remember taking our gas masks every day and we had to keep our packed lunches in the box too. As we lived quite close to RAF Hemswell and also Scampton we had the Lancasters etc. flying over our house every day. If I hear the Lancaster now and shut my eyes it brings back all the memories. We had to have all the windows blacked out with blinds, etc. Our Uncle Den joined the A.R.P. and had a plaque on the outside gate of the farm.

One of my vivid memories was one night when bombs were dropped on our farm and up the road 鈥� my sister and I used to argue as to who was going to sleep with our Grandad. The beds were very high in those days, and on this particular night when the bombs were dropped Joan was sleeping with him and he thought the noise was Joan falling out of bed so he leaned over to feel on the floor and squashed her, so she didn鈥檛 sleep with him again!! One of the bombs that was dropped that night fell into a ditch just past the farm and afterwards Grandad and Uncle Den took us to look at the hole. What we didn鈥檛 know was that one of the bombs had fallen into one of our cornfields next to the house. This was April 1940 and when our Uncle started harvesting, he was cutting the corn with the binder in this particular field and suddenly saw this huge hole. In tho course, he was using horses. We had to have the Bomb Disposal Unit out to explode it and they stopped all the traffic on the road, and we had to open all the doors and windows to make sure the animals were safe. I remember it so well as Joan and I sat on the couch and it blew us under the table 鈥� shrapnel was found for miles. Incendary bombs were always being dropped too, and we would look at the hedges on fire out of our bedroom window. I do not remember being at all frightened.

There was a searchlight unit at the Chestnuts near Glentham and my Grandma was asked to cook supper for the men working there. It was so exciting for Joan and I as they would bring lovely slab fruit cakes and chocolate and we would stand at the top of the stairs and wait for them. Mum was a barmaid at the Monks Arms at Caenby Corner, and, of course, in those days the roads were not so busy and not so wide, and on a Sunday night Grandma would take us for a walk up to Caenby Corner. One night we were walking home and saw an aeroplane crashing 鈥� she made us run as it looked as if it was coming down on our farm, but as it happened it crashed into a field just below Bishopsbridge.

When food rationing arrived it was particularly bad for people in towns, but on our farm we were very lucky as we had our own chickens, cows, pigs etc. Grandad also had a large vegetable garden and an orchard full of apple trees and fruit bushes. We made our own butter too, and it was delicious. The only thing I can think of that we didn鈥檛 have were bananas 鈥� I remember the taste of my first one. Mum used to sing all the wartime songs to us and to this day I can still remember all the words. One of my memories is of Grandma absolutely loving Winston Churchill and had a large picture of him hanging on the wall in the room.

In those days young children were not allowed to hear as much as young people do today and of course there were no televisions and Grandad restricted what we listened to on the radio 鈥� (if we were good we were allowed to listen to 鈥淒ick Barton 鈥� Special Agent鈥� our favourite programme!!!! As I got a bit older Grandad would not let me look at the newspapers although of course comics were more in my line!! We had evacuees at our school in Glentham but I don鈥檛 think we really understood why they were there. Unlike people in towns we did not have to go into airraid shelters, but I do remember standing in our stackyard one night and seeing Hull on fire as it had been heavily bombed. Our family had noone in the Forces during the war 鈥� we were quite a small family and most of our relatives worked on farms so were not involved. A few out of our village lost their lives, but we were too young to understand. We were very lucky.

We had German and Italian prisoners of war in the large warehouses at Bishopsbridge 鈥� they worked on the farms.

When VE Day arrived we had friends in Cleethorpes and we went to a big party there, but I was only 12 and do not remember much about it.

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