大象传媒

Sixteen year old, Hoo Common Farm, Chattenden.

I lived on a farm at Chattenden during the war, we had cows supplying milk that we delivered locally. Children under 5 yrs old got one pint per day free. I seperated some of the milk and turned it into cream and butter. we gave our food coupons away becase we got enough food from the local shops by supplying them with the cream and butter. we had the royal marines based on our land and i used to go up and supply the milk. well into the war they told me in 'strict confidence' that if i saw a plane with a light on, go under cover immediately as it was a flying bomb and when the light went off it fell to land and blew up its target, this happened night after night. we could not use our air raid shelter as it filled with rats - we used it to put our milk churns down there to keep the milk chilled, no fridges then. i also saw from one of the bedroom windows the german rockets leaving the continet and they landed many times on our local bases demolishing them and killing many residents. i went to the local dances three times a week cycling there and back, no petrol for pleasure, it was rationed. we had three land girls who worked in the cow shed milking the cows by hand. i was lucky a local millionaire used to take me every tuesday to his stables to ride his retired race horses. one day i was rescuing my hat, pulled the right hand rein and the horse got the wrong message and jumped a small hedge and i landed in a spitfire aerodrome at gravesend much to the amusement of the men there. in those days not many knew about or had enough money to have such things as interest in their money. this millionaire did and he did not pay the poor locals who shod the horses and did his iron work repairs until the yearly interest had been paid into his bank once a year.

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