大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥� War by a volunteer from The Chepstow Society on behalf of Kathleen Pack.and has been added to the site with her permission. Kathleen Pack fully understands the site.s terms and conditions

Agriculture

My Father was a Farmer, my Mother well she did what they did in those days, she made butter and cheese and had poultry. I was in the house, in those days women didn鈥檛 work. Later on in the war we had these men coming around telling you how much you had to plough up and all that.

After my marriage, I was a farmer鈥檚 wife. It was nothing to have twelve men in at harvest time, but you would get extra rations for haymaking and threshing, because you would have all those men in threshing. Sam was with us for about, I can鈥檛 remember now, 13 or 14 years and George was with us for 20 odd years. George was with my husband before we got married and then he stayed with us for over 20 years.

We used to have pigs to kill for bacon, but in those days you because you didn鈥檛 have a deep freeze, you couldn鈥檛 keep anything. The only thing you could do was kill a pig and salt it. So we used to kill two or three pigs
I suppose that Market Day was their only day out. In wartime they
would be working all the time. Because you only had one man and he was on the Home Guard and he would be out half the night. You couldn鈥檛 get workers, they had all gone to the Army, and then of course when those Prisoners of War came they did bring them out in lorries to work for you.
If they hadn鈥檛 finished the job they were doing I would bring them back into Chepstow myself in the car. They were lovely boys, the Germans. The fellows that came, a pair of them would walk out on a Sunday from Bulwark, that鈥檚 about nine miles, just for their cooked meal. Then I would take them back home, back to the Camp. One of them, he was a single chap but he is married now with a lot of children, he wrote to me after the war.

They had Land Army Girls over on Price鈥檚 at Model Farm. They used to have all these Land Girls, and Aaron Price brought me a great big frying pan of food to fry up for these girls.

Army

We had buildings for the cattle and that, they commandeered our buildings one night, only one night for some exercises, it must have been a Friday night They came and asked if they could use the barn for whatever they were doing, they were all about all over the fields. On the Saturday morning I was driving down to pick my mother up and there was a an old lady on the top of Ty-fry Hill stopping me to tell me the Germans had come, she thought they were the Germans! Oh and she was frightened to death! I told her to go back and not to worry, it was only our soldiers.

I can remember the lorry breaking down with soldiers. It broke down one night by our buildings, an open lorry and these two soldiers had to sit in there all night. As soon as the light came on they came knocking on the door. So I used to make elderberry wine so I gave them some hot elderberry wine. Then I cooked them a breakfast

Home Life

Then, since I鈥檝e lived here, the Vicar rang one morning to say his Sister had got on touch with this German and he would like to write to me. He would like to get in touch with me. Could they send him my name and address? So then he wrote and then by the time he was working for us then, we had two men working for us and the one man used to give him cigarettes, keep him in cigarettes. Then after now when he got in touch he sent me money to give to this man who had supplied him with cigarettes during the war. And he remembers all the horses, the names of the horses, the name of the dog, my children鈥檚 names he remembers.

We had a bomb dropped, we were coming up the road this one night and we saw this big flash, we didn鈥檛 think nothing about it. We knew there were guns at Devauden and we didn鈥檛 take any notice. So we had gone to bed and we hadn鈥檛 been in bed long before somebody came banging on the door. So we went to the window and it was the Police. They said 鈥渨here did the bomb drop?鈥� Oh I said 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know鈥�. The Police said to me, 鈥渙h you get back to bed, don鈥檛 worry we鈥檒l be here in the morning.鈥� So then the Police told people that I was there on my own, but I wasn鈥檛. So the Police were all there in the morning and the bomb had dropped just
down over on what they call Model Farm Bank. It fell right into a field, there were no animals.

Oh, it was a hard life during the war, a hard life. You didn鈥檛 have petrol, you couldn鈥檛 go very far. There was another woman opposite the road,
where we we went to live after. We borrowed bikes. I was afraid to take the car, I was afraid in case you got stopped, perhaps I was silly I don鈥檛 know. But we used to borrow bikes and go to Whist drives and leave the men to look after the children.

One used to, I don鈥檛 know where she used to teach but she used to call, selling National Savings. he would run out of petrol and we would let her have petrol. She was the Organist in the church so they used to come and ask you to give so much for your children. You know savings certificates .

We used to go to the whist drives in Earlwood School. Then we used to play cards in the house, you entertained in those days. People in the evenings or somebody for lunch. The farmers used to work every other Sunday you see, and when it was my husbands day off, Sunday off we鈥檇 entertain.

Travel

We had blackout curtains and we also had the things on the lamps of the car, on the headlights of the car. They were to black out the light, it didn鈥檛 shine, just a tiny glimmer. There were no cat鈥檚 eyes! it was very difficult. I know the first night somebody wanted me to take them the other side of Llandenny and it was so foggy that the one woman got out and walked in front of me because there was no hedge or anything. When I got home I burst out crying to my father, I was so tired and the strain. That was the first night they were fitted.

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