大象传媒

The following is an extraction from my mother's notes made shortly before her death in 2000:

During the Blitz we were living at Beacon Park at the top of Dingle Road. We were living at Orchard Road, the corner house. The mobile anti-aircraft guns used to stop on our crossroads very often during the Blitz. One night there was a terrific noise and bang and we found out next morning that a landmine had landed in Ham Woods.

We saw the bombs falling on the Dockyard and surrounding areas and watched the many dogfights above us. One bullet whistled past my face and landed in the shelter in front of me. I was standing at the door of it watching a fight above (one lunch hour raid over HM Dockyard) and several bombs were dropped that day.

I was working at Pophams Restaurant. I was in the still room there. I enjoyed working there. It was burnt out one night by the incendiaries. We then moved to North Hill, the first corner house. After the war we had many visitors from the Liners etc as we did before the war.

Mum's Story

During the war I wasn't in the services. I worked in Pophams Restaurant, Bedford Street, Plymouth. That is until we were unlucky enough to have been burnt out by incenderies one night. It was such a shame as it was a good firm to work for and all the staff got on well together. The manageress, Miss Adams always treated us fair. She was American as far as I can remember. Lord and Lady Holliday, the Directors who knew my parents, were much the same. Passengers off the Liners would come in for coffee etc before going on elsewhere. Also we had racing drivers come in, among these was Peter Vosper, son of the garage owner - a nice chap. I was on the a-la-carte floor and had some nice waitresses and a cashier working with me.

I usually walked to and from work from my home at Beacon Park. My dad worked on the trams, usually serving the route between the City centre and Saltash Passage. I remember how one morning he came home saying how bodies had been washed up in the River Tamar. He understood that they were Germans, victims of a failed landing.

When dad returned from his shift on the morning run he and mum would usually go out for a walk and often bring back with them two or three service chaps whom we would provide with a good cooked breakfast. I still have the photo of one of them 'Tom' who came from Romford in Essex and was in the Durham Light Infantry. I have forgotten his surname.

During one of the first day time raids I was standing by the shelter in the garden watching the Jerries and our Spitfires. The target seemed to be the Dockyard. I heard a whistling sound and a bullet came whizzing down past my nose passing me only by an inch or so and it stuck in the shelter. I never thought to dig it out as a souvenir of my experience. I saw bombs coming down before that, some landing in the Keyham roads.

Many of our customers at Pophams were film stars. One of our waitresses was called Beatrice. She lived with her parents on the Hoe. I believe their neighbours were the parents of actor Richard Green (who played the 1960,s Robin Hood on TV). After the bombing Pophams temporarily relocated to a premises on North Hill - the Big Corner House.

One evening whilst walking home an elderly chap followed me with a knife. He threatened me and said he was going to kill me. I managed to outrun him.

At night we would often leave the City for the comparitive safety of Shaugh Bridge where dad had built us a 'bungalow', in reality a garden shed to which he had added an extension. He made a good job of it. It was cosy and clean and had a stove outside constructed around a large biscuit tin which served for an oven.

One night during a raid whilst out there, some Jerries baled out over the woods behind us. The men went down with big sticks etc and found a couple of them. They were quite young little more than boys. They told how they were forced at gunpoint to fly the planes with a gestapo bloke behind them.

There were Polish chaps operating out of Yelverton aerodrome. They were very nice and decent and sometimes they came down to Shaugh Bridge to join us all. A lot of business people also had huts out there. It was quite a community and we had a good time despite a war being on. One day some friends and I decided to climb the Dewarstone, the hard way - and we succeeded. We use to have dances out there in a big shed.

If we couldn't use my brother George's car we would sometimes catch a bus as far as Roborough Village Hall then walk to Shaugh from there. Or we might catch a train direct travelling along the old Princetown line. One night as we reached the Hall, an air raid started. We dashed down the road to the shelter of a hayrick shed. The others clamboured over a hedge and got here okay but I was unlucky. As I came to slide down a tree trunk my pants got snagged on a nail that was there. At that moment a plane swooped very low over us.

Another evening travelling out there by car, as we reached the lower road to Shaugh a horse had strayed from the field behind us and surprised us by leaping right over the roof of the car to the other side. At the beginning of the raids, we used to with others, be put up overnight in Roborough Hall, sleeping as best we could covered with donated blankets. During the war everyone seemed so nice and friendly and helpful no matter what class or creed hey were. We were all in it together and worked together.

One night when we slept in Roborough Village Hall we returned home to the City next day to find that our house had lost its roof. A land mine had landed down behind in Ham Woods with a number of bombs scattered all around. Ack Ack guns were positioned at the crossroads at Beacon Park. We were then living at No. 1 Orchard Road.

Sometimes neighbours might pool resources to contribute to providing a cooked breakfast for servicemen here on a brief stopover en route to somewhere but also were able to extend our meagre rations from time to time by tapping into the 'Black Market'. This especially helped when it came to clothing.

On VE night after going on the Hoe, we had a big street party. My brother and friends collected the woooden gates etc to make a bonfire. Everyone had a good time. Then we had another party in the daytime so the children could join in and got permission to have the road closed off and traffic diverted around our street. Flags, bunting - I used to do a lot of the cooking and arranging these things.

On May 2nd 1945 at 2 pm Les and I were married at St Marks Church, Ford. I was to have a red carpet and choir, also bells. But on the day the choir couldn't come and everything went wrong. It snowed when we came out and it was cold. We were all freezing. On the way to the reception at the hotel on the Hoe, our car caught fire just as we were about to go under Worth Road bridge. Lorry-loads of American troops came by shouting across to us. We had to get out and wait beneath the bridge for a replacement car to come.

We had a 3-tier cake which was made by a friend and new neighbour in Dingle Road (Mrs Richards). My outfit was borrowed from her daughter - a long white gown, long white veil, white organza petals headress, white satin courtshoes, white gloves, a bouquet of red and white tea roses, maiden hair fern and lillies of the valley. The bridesmaids - my only sister Beryl and sisters in-law Phyllis, Edna and Nan (eldest brother's wife) wore gowns of gold, turquise and apricot, all made of taffeta. Their headresses were London-Paris models purchesed from Dingles - then relocated to 'Ingleside' near Hyde Park Corner. We also had a lovely 'Flower Girl'. Her name was Francis. Her dad was then on HMS Exeter and had been involved in the battle on the River Plate. They lived at Ivybridge. We also had a pageboy David ('Robin')Ellis, one of my fiancees cousins. Les wore a navy blue dress uniform. I had sent him the money so he could buy it off a mate. My youngest brother Fred served as usher. Meanwhile my middle brother Tom was in France and was soon to be present at the signing of the Peace Treaty. He sent me a bottle of Hubigant perfume.

For our brief honeymoon we went to Paignton with friends for the weekend. The train was full of troops, British and American. I was with our friends wife at one end of the train and Les at the other end.

How we met

Les was serving overseas. His parents and mine met at the Britannia Branch of the Royal British Legion of which both couples were members. The Coombs family then lived at Beacon Park Road. Always in those days I was expected to have an escort so we rarely ever really had a chance to be alone as couples these days.

A brother in the RAF

Mum's older brother Tom Winzor was a boy entrant at RAF Craswell. He developed a particular talent from Radio operation and handling codes. He wanted to become a pilot but was repeatedly rejected for this because of his value to the MOD as a decoder. I sometimes wonder why he didn't work at Bletchley Park. We know he had contacts with SOE and French Resistance members. Also top political figures in both Britain and America. Even post-war apparently he was permitted to maintain high ranking contacts. Uncle Tom was always very secretive about his wartime past and seemed wary of everyone always looking around him, ever vigilant.

Details of his service if there are any, remain with his son Robert. I can offer no more.

Now a very strange story

Mum often spoke of what must have been a wartime jaunt in the car as she could not recall seeing a single signpost - nothing to give away where they were. They drove out to a familiar haunt at Postbridge and had an alfresco breakfast there in the garden of a tea shop. Revived, they drove on further. The women in the party became hungry again. To the side of a road, down a sloping drive they saw a large house with black framed windows. For some reason they took this to be a restaurant. Going down the driveway they knocked at the door. As they waited to be let in, for no apparent reason, necklaces and cufflinks began to fall from them to the ground. The door was opened by a woman in a victorian-style outfit. Inside was a single long refectory table and a dresser with items such as pewter ware on it and Buddha-like figurines. Even inside the building strange things happened to them. Thinking back on that day mum said that whilst she knew they enjoyed a meal there, she could not remember what they ate. She remained puzzled by this place for years and post-war could never rediscover where it was.

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