大象传媒

I lived at Hemingstone, at the lower part of a village north of Ipswich. One of my first memories is just before the War when my parents bought a wireless. We were able to hear Chamberlin declare War while at home on a Sunday in September 1939. Soon we were told to have a blackout. Our house had no mains electricity, our lighting was by oil lamps with a wick, and candles. Still, we covered the six downstairs windows with roofing felt. Upstairs curtains were good enough.

I started at Gobseck Junior School, walking two miles there every day. At 11, in 1940, I went to Claydon School. Beacuse it was over five miles away I was given (for my schooldays) a free bicycle.

The School had a pig sty and kept chickens. They dug up the playing field to grow vegetables - all for our cooked school lunch. The waste went back to the sty.

Farmers came to Claydon School when they needed people for picking and the Harvest. For this they extended our holidays, sometimes it runned right up to October. I helped in my first Harvest when I was twelve. We also gathered rose-hips, chestnuts and acorns. There was grinding equipment to make the nuts into pig feed. We got paid, so we were happy to do the work.

At Hemingstone we recycled everything, with our shed being used a collecting point for bottles, cans, waste paper, and metal. We had our own vegetables. Our water came from a well, which was shared between three houses. Many people had 'deep pockets'. They went out 'brushing' to drive pheasants, partridges into the air so they could shoot them. We caught rabbits, another extra to our rations.

In the evening we couldn't afford to listen to the wireless for long. In the Winter we read, or played games. In the Summer we hardly stayed indoors. All this time we often saw flares as the Bombers came over the Orwell.

I left school at Christmas 1943, and went to work on Mr Edwards's farm at Hemingstone. Most of the traction, such as ploughing, was still with horses. There were some self-binders, and steam traction engines, and a few tractors. I learnt to drive one at fourteen.

Land girls came to Hemingstone. It was hard work such as with the threshing, in dust and dirt. Conditions were rough. Next came the Italians (after their surrender). They were taken to the fields in lorries. I worked with them and we knew they were used to farming. After D-Day there were German prisoners. They were mostly willing, bored with being in a camp, and the farmer was glad of their help. He gave them eggs, potatoes, or some pocket money. Then there were the Displaced Persons, Poles, Yugoslavs and others. Many of them stayed in Suffolk.

Farm work was not easy. We ploughed three acres a day. When the grain was wet we couldn't use our iron wheeled vehicles and had to cut the crop with scythes and stack it with pitch-forks. Under twenty-one we got half pay, rising to two thirds. I joined up for the Army in 1948.

Mr Arthur Fuller has agree with the conditions of this site and for this to be posted by Ipswich Museum.

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