大象传媒

I was married in April 1938, from my grandmother鈥檚 home, Tiverton castle, Devon. We lived in a flat in the Red house on Topsham road, Exeter, which we rented. It was a very nice flat with big Edwardian rooms. The day war was declared, September 3rd 1939, I was three months pregnant ad my mother and father-in-law were staying with us. It was decided that as my husband Nigel was on the reserve of the Sherwood Foresters and would be called up that to rent our flat furnished through Topsham barracks and that I should move to Tiverton castle, which had been my main home since 1917. It was all very upsetting, but to move had been the right decision. Nigel had been called up to Nottingham on September 6th. I drove him from Tiverton to the station in Taunton and settled in to the castle. It was a beautiful old house and had been built in 1106 by William the Conqueror for one of his knights, Richard de Redvers. Part of the castle in which we lived had been built around some of the old walls in 1680. The gardens went down to the River Exe. My father was a great fisherman and caught many trout and salmon in our waters. The gardens were exceptional and were opened to the public about twice a year for a Nursing fellowship. Beyond the gardens there were two fields, one was known as the Pig field and the other was the Orchard. One of my aunts kept a large amount of hens and another aunt had goats in the fields, who were milked in the coach house in the stable yard. Before the war, my grandmother had a housekeeper, a cook, a kitchen maid, two parlour maids and two chambermaids.
Very shortly after war broke out they all left for wartime work. There was also a boot boy who kept the stove for the central heating full of coke. A ton of coke was used every month! There was also a gardener who had a little cottage, known as the Lodge at the front gate. He lived there with his nice wife and their little boy. Alas she had a tumour on the brain and died, and our gardener joined the forces. We had an old boy called Loosemore who did the hard work in the garden and all of us helped. We had to grow vast quantities of potatoes for the war effort. Nigel鈥檚 part of the Sherwood Foresters was then stationed at Shildon, Co Durham. In November 1939 I went up by train to stay with Nigel. I spent a night in the hotel in Paddington station. While I was there the first siren of the war was set off, a bit scary, but it was a mistake! Nigel was billeted with a dear old couple of sisters, who were very kind, but they cooked much too much food for me. I tried to tell them kindly, not so much please, but it didn鈥檛 work, so we had to put quite a bit on our fire. There was a bathroom with a very old bath which was constantly being painted. The loo was at the bottom of the garden. Nigel had a batman, whose name was Ivor Jones, he was very welsh and very nice. He used to bring us up early morning teas and tell us about the weather. I always remember him saying 鈥淰airy slip today madam!鈥� I think I was there for two weeks or so. One day we went on a very bumpy old bus to Darlington and to beyond, where an old aunt of Nigel鈥檚 lived with a friend.
Aunt Fate was her name and after the war she moved down to a small flat in London and asked Nigel and I to go up to her and take any of her furniture that we wanted. We had just moved into a large flat and needed a lot of things, which included a grand piano! On the 2nd Christmas of the war, three of our erstwhile maids who were working in Tiverton came back to serve Christmas dinner for us in the way they always had鈥o sweet of them. In the old day, at 7pm, one of the maids rang the gong, which was the dressing gong and up we went to change for dinner. My grandmother was now 89 and helped by the 1st parlour maid. At 7.45, one of the maids came into the drawing room and announced 鈥渄inner is served madam鈥� and we all follows after Granny into the dining room. When war broke out the family at the castle consisted of my grandmother (Mrs Wingfield), four spinster aunts, my mother and father and eventually a dear old lady called Mrs Davies, who was the cousin of my old Nanna who was bombed out of her house in London.

Early in March, when my baby was due any time, I was walking along the river with my Aunt Susie, we were collecting river sand that had been brought down by a recent flood and this is just what my aunt needed in the potting shed. She was very clever at this part of gardening. We had a potting shed, as well as two large greenhouses. Aunt Susy was also in charge of all the fruit trees in the garden and she made little muslin bags to hang over the pears and stop them being spoilt by insects. We also had a huge black fig tree sheltered by the potting shed. I simply loved figs as a child, so did my three sisters. While walking by the river I began to feel pains. It was Monday 18th March. We went back to the Castle and packed a suitcase, but decided that I wouldn鈥檛 have to go back to the nursing home in Exeter until tomorrow as there was a programme on the 大象传媒 at 7pm which I always looked forward to. However this was not to be. Things got a bit too much for me and my mother drove me in to Exeter. My lovely baby daughter was born very early on Tuesday morning on March 19th. I heard from my husband that he was on emergency leave and was going to his parents in Sheringham. This was very hurtful that he didn鈥檛 come to see me and baby Jane. I had to stay in the Nursing home for three weeks which was the usual way of coping with maternity in those days. The next thing I heard was that he was in Rosyth and eventually we heard that there had been a raid to Norway and the Sherwood Foresters were involved. This was before Dunkirk. The next thing was a telegram from the War office to say that my husband was missing. Pretty devastating. On of the other officers wives got in touch with me and all of us had the same telegram. It had been a complete disaster. They went over from Scotland with three ships, two for the troops and one for the ammunition etc. This one was sunk so they arrived with nothing, not even shovels to make trenches. My husband and another officer had got some skis from some friendly Norwegians, but my husband had never skied and didn鈥檛 get very far before he was captured. He spent the rest of the war in Oflags in Germany. Eventually, on May7th I received another telegram from the WO, to say that he was a POW. Nigel was only a 2nd It and his pay was miniscule. Luckily for me John Players for whom my husband was working made up his pay to what he had been receiving from them before the war. We wives were kept in touch by one of the officers wives (whose name I鈥檓 sorry to say I have forgotten!) Eventually we were given information as to what we should do as wives of POW鈥檚. We had special letter forms and we were allowed to send out chocolate, I think via the Red Cross. We received a letter a month from them. Nigel鈥檚 letters were very boring and he never sent me loving phrases just 鈥榳ith love from鈥� at the end. I needed more than this! Again through the Red Cross we were able to send an occasional parcel. Nigel said he was feeling the cold in his Oflag, and I sent him two lovely Scottish blankets which weighed very little, also his backgammon board which he was asking for. He was a great bridge and backgammon player, which of course was a great help to him in captivity.

Life for me was taken up with looking after the baby. I was breast feeding, which was a joy. At this time we still had maids, but very shortly the horror of Dunkirk and the tremendous bravery of all our little ships round the South coast going over to France to help rescue the British Expeditionary Force. It was wonderful what they did, being bombed and shot at, many never came home. We had no TV in those days, but listened avidly to all the news. The next thing that was of great interest to us in May 1940 was that Winston Churchill became our PM. We weren鈥檛 certain about this but not for long. He became a very great person for us. He was wonderful talking to us on the wireless. The next thing that happened was that evacuees arrived because of the awful bombing of London. From the attic I took down for their use a lovely big old pram, then -heaven help us- we had a family with a mother and an aunt and ten children from the East end. We did all we could to make them happy. They took over the maids bedrooms and found the kitchen nice and warm, but they did not stay very long, they did not life away from the East end. I hope that they weren鈥檛 hurt by the bombs, but of course we never heard from them. I think they were completely illiterate! On May 23rd, Jane was christened in St. Peters church Tiverton. This is next door to the castle. All four grandparents were there, as well as Jane鈥檚 great grandmother and Great Aunts. She looked lovely in the family christening robes. Because of the war we only had a family tea for her. In 1940 a hospital to the forces in what had been a hotel in St Peter Street, very near the castle was organised. We were asked to lodge some of the nurses. This was a good thing for me as I knew some of them, they were mostly around my age and I made several friends and they loved little Jane. She was growing at apace and was a happy little person, very friendly. So the war went on. We had had the bombers for Bristol etc coming over us most nights. We always new the sound of German bombers, I鈥檓 not sure how! We had a lot of air raid warnings as they came quite close to us; we had no shelter but congregated in the dining room. We could always have got under the large dining room table, but this was never necessary. Although one or two bombs were dropped on Tiverton and around as the Germans went home with some bombs not dropped on their targets. When Jane was eleven months old, she started to have attacks of asthma, a family complaint, which had never affected me. I eventually took her to stay with an uncle who was a TB doctor and who had a friend who was an asthma specialist. He set up a testing system and found that she was allergic to every sort of test, this was 1941. By 1942 it was decided that it would best for Jane and self to move back to our flat in Exeter, which luckily at this point did not have any tenants. I had to get rid of all feather pillows and keep dust to a minimum. This was certainly better for Jane, but she still had attacks. Then Exeter was bombed which was unpleasant to say the least. But the raid of May 3rd 1942 was terrific. Exeter had no defences. This was known as a Baedeker raid, as we had bombed the German town of Lubeck, another very historic place. An air raid shelter had been built for me by the Forces in Topsham barracks, just down the road from me. I carried Jane down when the sirens went and Exeter was lit up by green flares. The barracks had one gun which did good work and brought down plane. I had to get Jane out of Exeter.

Michael Dykes Bower who was a well known oculist in the city. He lived in Southernhay east and his surgery was opposite. He told me to stay with him as he must see if his house was alright as well as his cook. Luckily it was but his surgery was flattened. He said he would ring my uncle in Frinley, Surrey and explain what was happening. Later that afternoon to my joy, my mother and aunt arrived to find out how I was. The castle car was an ambulance and they were helpers. They were very pleased to see us alive but couldn鈥檛 stay as they were on duty. I arrived in Woking at 3am, poor Jane was having bad asthma attacks, after that trauma I was glad to be back with my aunt and uncle, and we stayed there for quite a few months.
I then moved into the dear little gardener鈥檚 cottage in the castle gates. The town of Tiverton began to fill up with GIs who were very polite. I had a weekly bridge night with two nice US sailors and a girl friend of mine. We had a lot of Italian POWs in the fields down below the castle and one called Foschi came to work in the garden for us so that we could grow potatoes for the war effort. He was such a nice man and even made a wheelbarrow for Jane which my grandchildren still play with now. The Italians left and the German POWs came instead. Then there was the time that a dear old friend of our family who lived in a great house near Bampton, started to collect us young wives to come over to various houses, where they were able to have room for dances to entertain the American officers from Tiverton and take us home again. I think the Americans enjoyed it, we did also! So, then the war continued, Jane and I were quite happy in the gardeners cottage.
When she was 3 years old it was decided she should go to kindergarten and have plenty of other children to play with. Meanwhile I was able to volunteer at local schools; a large hall was set up as a dining room for the local schoolchildren. We had a marvellous cook and fed 300 children in 2 sittings. After which a gourmet meal as cooked for us helpers. At the castle we were lucky to have plenty of eggs. Lovely creamy milk was delivered to our door every day. A circus came to Tiverton and the first thing I knew about it was the sound of an elephant trumpeting just outside the cottage! In the summer of 1944 it was wonderful to watch the gliders practising for, what we didn鈥檛 know was, the Normandy landings. These eventually took place and the Germans signed the peace treaty. I and Jane spent the day with friends. Meanwhile my family sold the castle; it was too difficult for them to cope with no staff. I had had no news from my husband for along time, but I had been in touch with the telephone people to ask them if anyone rang the castle number would they transfer the call as he wouldn鈥檛 have known what was happening. This worked and one night he rang me, he told me he鈥檇 landed on a main road, as he鈥檇 never seen proper runways, only grass ones. Anyhow he arrived back safely

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