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I stayed working in Hull [at an insurance office] until 1943, about April, my sight was already very poor then so they didn’t want me for the forces. I heard that they wanted people at St Mary’s Manor which was the War Agricultural Committee, which was an offshoot of the East Riding County Council. We had a very knowledgeable executive committee, anybody who was anybody in the farming community was on the committee, or one of the sub committees.

Farmers were very closely supervised as the war progressed because we needed every square yard of land. Farmers who didn’t come up to expectations were classed as ‘C’ farmers and if they didn’t do as they were told their land could be taken over.

My chief recollection is being an Air Raid Warden and doing fire watching, getting up when the sirens went in the early hours of the morning, very bleary-eyed and going round the corner to our first aid, our warden’s post. It was quite tiring actually. Nothing much happened in Beverley so we all thought it was a bit of a waste of time, but you had to go.

There were the usual shortages that everybody experienced sweet shops with fake bars — it looked as though they were well-stocked but they were all cardboard with wrappers on. I did most of the shopping which was rather handy for my mother, I did it on the way home at lunchtime and if anything special came into the shops I was on hand.

It [the war] did Beverley quite a bit of good in some ways, because the tanyard was very busy and the shipyard, which had been languishing pre-war, came into its own and was so busy because instead of building trawlers they were building minesweepers. They were quite renowned and had a wonderful yard manager who’d come from the Clyde and was very well regarded by the workforce. He was one reason why the shipyard flourished, it was still pretty busy after the war.

As well as grocers and greengrocers we had individual butchers. Our butcher who was a very gruff man had a boy called Neville who couldn’t wait until he was 16 to join the Navy. I think the ship was either torpedoed or captured on his first voyage. He didn’t come back. I think they were on a mission to Norway and they were captured, and I think they were shot. So we heard after the war. Our butcher who was not the sort of man would take it so much to heart, was so heartbroken, he was such a lovely young lad. Just 16 I think.

Harry was never called up because he was apprentice to one of the local builders and they were not called up until they’d finished their apprenticeship, and then the war was finished and builders were in huge demand. He would have been quite happy to go I think but they didn’t want him — he was more use with a trowel.

If the farmers were told to plough up a field and put grass to crops they didn’t have any option. I got the job of taking notes at the, what you would call a tribunal now. I felt really sorry for them, quite inadequate farmers with not a very large farm and they’d been content in the past to muddle along, but they were frowned upon. Before their farm was taken over they could appear before the executive committee and state their case, which some of them did at great length! I don’t think the members of the executive committee were very hard on them, but they were doing a job that they were directed to do.

A friend that worked with me at St Mary’s Manor actually married a prisoner of war, a little while after the war. He’d been in the German Navy and was taken prisoner. They were all sent to do farm work because there was a shortage of farm labour. The Germans had the reputation of being very hard working. The Italians were very genial but I don’t think they ever over-exerted themselves. My friend who married this German was allowed to stay after the war — they were given the option of going back to their own homes or staying here, but they had to stay in agriculture for a certain number of years and then they could apply for British nationality.

I was in the Cultivation Department, which was mainly concerned with seeing that all land was properly cultivated. Then there was a district officer, I think there was 8 in the East Riding, who went round and knew the area and made recommendations about the cultivation orders. It was a bit of a pain doing these cultivation orders because you had to get the OS number and the acreage right or it was not valid. And various instructions as to what they should do with this field and that, and the use of artificial fertilisers to improve the land.

Then there was the Milk Department, and their job was to see that we got as much milk from the cows as possible, and the Livestock Department to improve the quality of livestock, a Labour Department — that was quite a big effort because they had the supervision of PoWs and the land army girls, who they found accommodation for and directed them to various places. Then there was another department which was a bit of a PR thing I think, Demonstrations Department, and it was their job to kind of sell these new ideas. Some of the ideas were quite modern. There was the Feeding Stuffs Department too, because farmers had to have permits to buy any sort of feeding stuffs for their stock, so that was a very large department.

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