大象传媒

I was born in a large farmhouse at Dalwood near the quiet A35.

In early 1939, aged 5, I started travelling in a red Devon General bus to attend Summerland School in New Street, Honiton. Our hats had a distinctive S badge.

Surprisingly, relatives arrived being my grandmother and aunts fleeing from a possible German invasion of Jersey. My step-grandfather and others remained on the island which was occupied as feared.

The war meant blackout and carrying a gas mask to school. I loved the big Chestnut tree near our Congregational Church Honiton bus stop and the narrow water channels beside the pavements. I was sad that Honiton St Paul's Church railings were cut down for the war effort. We ate midday meals at school and latterly at The British Restaurant (horrible caterpillar and cabbage greens) and at Gill's Cafe, both in the High Street.

At home, the Jersey relatives dispersed and were replaced by London evacuees who stayed for nearly all the war. My father ploughed up hitherto marginal land and became a Special Constable. Labour was scarce and at some point farmers endured Double Summer Time which meant that poultry could not be shut up till late. Grown-ups were tired.

The A35 became busy with lorries thundering along to help build aerodromes at Dunkeswell, Smeatharpe and Trickey Warren. Convoys of army vehicles were seen. There was a little local bombing, searchlights and some German plane crashes. There was no time to visit the seaside and anyway Seaton beach had a defence wall of what looked like scaffolding.

We children collected foxgloves and rosehips to help the war effort medically.

Life changed when US troops arrived. Our fields were occupied by black Americans, the first black people I'd ever seen - so exciting! The A35 now saw different Army vehicles, some called Ducks, which could enter water. One June night in 1944, my father called us outside. The whole sky throbbed with planes, their lights like moving stars. This was probably the eve of D-Day.

When the war ended in August 1945, my father built a bonfire and we raced around. Italian and then German prisoners of war came to work on the farm from their billet at Honiton. The German eventually lived with us and was not repatriated until 1947.

My relatives returned to Jersey. My step-grandfather had used his empty house to shelter escapees from the Germans. Russia and Israel honoured his courage.

For a country child (Valerie Lawrence) mine was an eventful war.

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