大象传媒

My name is David Hunter. I was born in January 1938 and my early life was shaped by my experiences of World War Two.

During the period 1939 to 1942 my father was a farm worker and was employed as a 鈥渉ind鈥� on a small farm on the outskirt of Stockton-on-Tees, which is an industrial town in North East England.

The town itself was a centre for chemical production and also was a major centre for the Iron and Steel industry as was the adjoining town of Middlesbrough.

He was exempt from war service, because, being a farm worker; his efforts were considered essential to helping the maintenance of food production to sustain the population of the United Kingdom

The events of the years between 1939 and 1946 are etched on my mind, some affected the way that I have thought over the intervening 65 years, most have shaped my character and I believe made me a better man.

Most of all, the lessons that my parents taught me, learned by them, through tribulation, have been passed on

I have always wanted to share my life experiences with others. I am now in the autumn of my life, it has been a rich experience, not in a monetary sense, but I feel that I have achieved most of what I have set out to do. It has been well worthwhile and I feel that I have been able to add to the quality of life for others. What more can a man ask?

My first recollections of World War 2

Our cottage in the country

Memory is a strange thing, but I seem to have quite vivid recollections of the start of the war. After this length of time it is difficult to separate what I actually remember from what I have been subsequently told by my family, perhaps it is the onset of dementia that makes me able to recall the events of sixty years ago, I think not though. The events were so traumatic for my young mind that they are will forever live with me.

From early 1939 we lived in a 鈥渉ind鈥檚 cottage on Fulthorpe Farm at Thorpe Thewles. The farm is on good grain land to the North of the Tees Valley.

The cottage was set in the middle of a small 鈥済arth鈥� about half a mile from the main farm, adjacent to woodland on the West side and near to the Wynyard estate on the East.

It was a two storey building, facing south, on the West side, was a living room, and a small kitchen, across a central passage which connected the front door to the back, was a sitting room. Upstairs were three bedrooms; to the West were two, and a main bedroom to the East.

There was no electricity; heating was from a coal or wood range, which also contained an oven and hobs for water heating etc. Lighting was by oil lamps. The wireless, to keep us in touch with the outside world, was powered by an accumulator and a dry battery. Water was drawn from a well in the kitchen with a pump handle. The floor in the kitchen was stone flagged and had an ash tree spouting from it at one time. The 鈥減rivy鈥� was in an outbuilding to the rear. There was a small vegetable garden in front; here my father used the skills, learned from his Grandfather, to grow cabbages and rows of beans and potatoes to feed ourselves.

War breaks out

From a very early age, I was taken each Sunday to the Parish Church in Thorpe Thewles by my mother. One of my earliest memories is that of the Vicar, a Mr. Bedows, telling the congregation that we were at war with Germany.

Preparing for an invasion

Things would never be the same again, even in this sleepy corner of the North East.

Behind our house were two very large fields, they were called the thirty six acre and the fifty two acre. There was very little machinery on the farm, in fact my father was a horseman and ploughed and worked the land with a magnificent Shire horse.

One day a very big tractor appeared and proceeded to drag a very large plough in lines across the thirty six acre grass field. I remember riding on this American machine, sitting on the broad flat wings of this monster as it ploughed trenches across the field at intervals of about eighty yards. The driver, a young man named John, explained that he was working for the Government, making the field unsuitable for the Germans to land airoplanes in, so that they couldn鈥檛 invade us.

Meanwhile, in the fifty two acre field, which was used for growing corn, a gang of men were erecting huge heavy poles, letting them into the ground; the idea was to break the wings of any airoplane that was trying to land.

Civilian precautions

Towards the end of 1940, my maternal grandparents came to live with us for a while. They were not local people, my grandfather had been blinded in the First World War and they had eventually settled in Redcar, a nearby coastal town which had been bombed very early on in the war and whose population were fearful of shelling from the sea by the German navy.

My father had joined the Home Guard and used to disappear a couple of evening each week in the winter and eventually came home one night in an ill fitting khaki uniform and with a gun and some brass bullets

Building the air raid shelter

One day when I was about three, some corrugated sheets were delivered and my dad and the farmer, a Mr. Harry Turnbull, dug a large hole in the Garth in front of the house. They assembled the corrugated sheets into a sort of arch over the pit and covered the whole lot up with the earth and sods that had been dug out of the hole. I remember, excitedly going to see it the next day and my dad exclaiming 鈥渢hat it was full of 鈥榳atter鈥� and wouldn鈥檛 be of much use to us if the Germans decided to bomb us鈥�.

Life went on at Fulthorpe Cottage, the summer of 1941 seemed endless, I remember seeing the odd airoplane flying around, there were apparently two aerodromes fairly close to us. From the bedroom windows I could see large balloons floating in the sky over Stockton and Billingham and see the belching chimneys of the chemical works and steel making plants of industrial Teesside.

Local defence

Once, on a trip into Stockton I heard a wailing, my mother said it was 鈥渨ailing winney鈥�, I asked her what she meant and don鈥檛 remember being worried when she explained that it was to warn us of an impending air raid. I soon got to know the difference between the warning and the all clear sounds though.

There was an army encampment at Kiora Hall, a large country house near 鈥渢he two mile house鈥�, a pub on the main road into town. Soldiers in uniform would occasionally get off the bus there and I could see the barrels of huge guns pointing at the sky among the tents that they lived in. 鈥淎ck. Ack guns鈥� my mother called them. 鈥� The German planes are frightened of them鈥�, my mother explained, 鈥渆specially 鈥楤ig Bertha鈥�.鈥�. Little did I know that I would become very grateful to 鈥楤ig Bertha鈥�?

We are bombed

Towards the autumn of 1941, , the nights grew dark much earlier. I used to go to bed about half past seven. I slept in the front bedroom; my simple bed had a 鈥渨ire mattress鈥�, a sort of wire mesh, rather like chain mail that supported the main flock mattress on which I slept.

One evening in late October I was awakened by the 鈥� boom, boom, and boom鈥� of 鈥楤ig Bertha鈥�. My mother came upstairs and brought me down to join her and my dad in the sitting room. The oil lamp glowed comfortingly on the table; it had a pink glass paraffin container with a tall pearl glass chimney. The fire crackled in the black leaded grate. I sat on the arm of the couch, it was a cold brown Rexene affair but to my three-year-old mind, it was a fine Shire horse that I could ride. I remember that we had a 鈥渂lackout curtain鈥�, made of some kind of rough material that reminded me of the horsehair sofa that I had seen at my great-grandfathers house. My mother talked quietly to me, re-assuring me, as we heard the drone of a twin engine plane approaching at full power.

Without any other warning, there was a terrific 鈥渃rump鈥� sound followed instantaneously by a howling wind. I remember the blackout curtain flying though the air. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, I saw the oil lamp crash to the floor onto the鈥� clippie鈥� mat that served as a hearth-rug, my father, who had been sitting at the table, calmly got up and rolled the now burning rug up into a parcel and push it up the chimney hole of the fire grate together with the remains of the lamp.

My next recollection is that of being carried by the farmer down the muddy lane to the main farm house, wrapped in a blanket and being put to bed while my dad and he returned to the bombed house.

Over the next couple of days I learned what had happened but was not to know the full tragic story until many years later. Apparently the Germans had launched a raid on Teesside, bombs were dropped on Redcar, killing the Mayor and some of the Councilors as they attended a meeting, the other two aircraft in the wing had continued over the towns, avoiding the barrage balloons but then had been met by the ack. ack. fire.

In their panic to escape, one aircraft turned north and east again, dropping five high explosive bombs as it did so. One narrowly missed the high railway viaduct at Thorpe Thewles, one dropped in the woods beside the railway station, one dropped ten yards from our house and the other two dropped harmlessly in woodland on the Wynyard Estate.

None of us were hurt but sadly my pet rabbit, sitting defenselessly in its hutch; beside the air raid shelter took a direct hit. The 500kg bomb left a huge crater, which remained unfilled for a few months. All the glass in the house was blown out, my bed being skewered by shards buried in the chain mail mattress. All the tiles came off the front of the house and my mother tells me that the front door passed clean through the back one and into the back yard.

We lived with the farmer and his wife over the winter and then returned to the house in the late January of 1942. There was obviously a shortage of building materials as the windows were replaced by ones made of frosted glass as normally fitted to bathrooms. This made it impossible to see out of the rooms and I well remember sitting one Saturday dinner time, seeing what I thought was a man carrying a bale of straw approach the front door. It was my Aunt Jessie coming to visit us wearing a yellow coat.

An after effect of the trauma was that my mother, who had been carrying her second child, was taken to Hospital some weeks later and gave birth to my sister, Lorna, prematurely. She unfortunately only lived for five days.

Contined in A Rural Child touched by war,part two (1943-1945)

David Hunter

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