大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/大象传媒 Radio Nottingham on behalf of Gladys Payne with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions"

May 8th my mother, 2 sisters and I were banished to the cellar steps of our house in Sneinton because of the air-raid, before very long my father, and brother came to tell us we must get on to an air raid shelter, we picked our way through the secondary bombs still falling and took shelter in the cases beneath the pub at the bottom of Newark St. on arriving home about 6.30 am the next morning the house was deemed inhabitable and we had to live with friends and relatives until we were housed off Western Boulevard in a council house.

February 4th I had my 17th birthday and decided to join the land army, the office was off Lister Gate below where the OLD MOOT HALL used to be, after a month I had had no reply so I went to ask why they told me they had no vacancies in the land army but they had vacancies in the Timber Corps which I accepted. A month later my uniform was delivered home and my railway ticket to Oxford. At Oxford station a Mr Paul Engel met us and took us to our billets which were with families in the community, showed us the sawmill where we reported at 8am the next morning.

STACKING FRESH CUT TIMBER, DIGGING OUT SAWDUST PITS, WORKING A VENEER MACHINE, PULLING OFF FOR THE SAWMAN ON A CIRCULAR SAW, it was varied work, heavy but enjoyable. We later joined by 20 ITALIAN PRISONERS of war, that is another story.

Later 1943 we were moved, I went to work in FORESTRY at WELLINGTON COLL, SANDHURST ST, SURREY were we felled TREES MOSTLY PINE, IN THE AFTERNOON WE MARKED THE TREES WITH A SCRIBE AND THEN WITH YOUR PARTNER YOU USED THE CROSS CUT TO CUT THEM INTO TIMBER, WOOD WOOL, PIT PROPS and what was left we had to burn. Every 2 weeks you had a danger felling peeling wood and loading the timber and put baps in the wagons at the railway station.

The final move was to London 1944 another sawmill in WALTHAMSTON, but living in Hackney the sirens never stopped, we slept in a surface shelter every night, the only things we took off were our boots. THE BUZZ BOMBS were terrible. We just washed our hands and faces and cleaned our teeth the next morning then off to work until the CARPENTARY from next door get a direct hit, then we spent most of the days down the shelter. I decided to go home to get a bath and there ended my Lumber Corp story. ALTHOUGH I never regret joining and it was all part and parcel of life and I enjoyed most of it.

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