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My Mum’s War Memories

My Mother, Rosemary — Rosie to all the family and friends — was ten years old when war was declared. She was attending the local school in Ivybridge, in Devon, which is a small village on the edge of Dartmoor. For a time, the only things that war meant were food rationing, the sound of the air raid siren and the news of how badly the nearest city, Plymouth (ten miles away) had been affected by the German bombs.

When the USA joined the War effort, life in the village changed. Many of the young G I’s were billeted in the village and everyone had been told to do their bit to make them feel welcome. Unfortunately, for the village, numerous fights took place between the black and the white American soldiers. Most of the locals had no experience of living in close proximity to black people, or in a society were racial differences were a matter of such aggression.

My Grandma, in an effort to do her bit to welcome the Americans, extended an invitation to a GI to visit for Sunday tea. In those days, Sunday teatime was always a bit special, most families made an effort to bake a cake or make a fruit crumble or have something especially nice.
Imagine the family’s surprise when a young black boy, only just eighteen, knocked on the door at Sunday tea time!!
Nothing daunted, my Gran fed him and talked to him and even agreed to write to his mum in America. The young lad explained that his own mother was very worried about him and even though he had tried to tell her he was fine, he thought if my Gran wrote and said she had met him, it might help to re-assure her.

About this time, my mum was starting her first job, as children only stayed in school until they were fourteen. It just so happened that mum’s birthday was in September , so when school broke up for the summer holidays, my Grandmother quickly found her a job with a family who lived in a small hamlet called Harford, about three miles away, on Dartmoor.
Mum’s main task was to look after a little girl of three, as the lady of the house was suffering from tuberculosis and was often too ill to look after the child. Her husband was an officer in the Air Force and was away on war duty.

To get to work, Mum used to walk the three miles every morning and every evening, through the country lanes. She had to pass a large old manor house, which she discovered was where the black American G I’s had been billeted. The white soldiers had been housed in a different area of the village.
This sort of segregation was a new concept to my mum.
However, as luck would have it, the G I that had come to Sunday tea, was living in the manor house and used to watch out for her, exchange a greeting and make sure she was OK each morning and evening.

Mum was paid seven shillings and sixpence (approx 38p in today’s money) a week when she first started her job. The lady of the house was very pleased with mum’s work, so just after mum’s fourteenth birthday, she wrote to my Gran and explained she was going to raise my mum’s wages to ten shillings (50p today) per week.

Just before the D Day invasion all the American G I’s left the village and did not return.
My mum remembers returning to the school playground and dancing to celebrate V E day.
My Gran continued to write to the black G I’s mum until she died. They never met, but used to write a couple times a year and tell each other about their lives, and exchange family photographs.

Written and contributed by Paula Phillips.

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