´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by a volunteer from Age Concern, Dorchester on behalf of John Arthur Bridle and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Bridle fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was born on 31 May 1930 at Moreton Common near Dorchester in south Dorset. I had three sisters and a brother. My father was a gardener for Lady Findlay at Moreton House and my mother was the cook at Moreton School. We lived in a tied cottage adjacent to the school.

I was 9 when war broke out. Moreton House was taken over first by the Military Police and later by the Americans; as a result of this the gardens were turned over to growing vegetables and my father’s services were no longer needed. So he got a job as a stoker looking after the boilers for the heating supply at Bovington Camp.

I had a milk round when I was a schoolboy and I used to deliver to the big house; I always got a nice piece of sponge cake while I was there. I did this round all through the war years. One day on my round I saw all these red lights going across a field in front of me; I found out later that they were tracer bullets.

I did not like school and used to spend all my spare time up at Glebe Farm — milking and helping out with anything I could. During the war I was able to get time off from school to go potato picking at Woodsford Farm which suited me very well. In those days you went to school at 5 and left at 14.

The Americans moved into the big house because they had set up a Field Hospital in adjoining fields. There were three fields covered with big tents. All the coloured men were in the first field — the drivers, ambulance drivers etc. In the second field were the white officers and the last one was set up for the nurses who were all white. We used to get any left-over newspapers from the delivery lady in the village and sell them to the Americans. There were big fireplaces in Moreton House and we used to collect firewood for the Americans to burn in them. They gave us candy for doing this which we shared out amongst ourselves.

On the day before D-Day everything was as usual up at the big house, but the next morning all that was left were the tents with their sides rolled up and tied. There was no-one there; everyone had vanished overnight. Then we looked up and saw all these gliders and Dakotas flying over, all going the same way. It was very exciting for us lads.

My Dad was in the Home Guard but he didn’t like it much. He was put on Night Guard Duty but was still working as a stoker during the day at Bovington. The Home Guard used to meet at what we called a round house where fruit and vegetables were stored up on Knappy Ground.

On 8 October 1940 a bomb was dropped on Moreton Church. My brother and I were in bed when this happened and our bedroom window was blown out. It had diamond panes like all the windows in our house, but after the bomb they were replaced with square panes. There had been a large yew tree up against the wall of the church and when we looked out all we could see were great lumps of yew lying in amongst Dad’s chickens in the garden. The yew tree, which was a good 300 yards away, had been blown clean out of the ground. We went up to look at the church and saw a great big hole — the whole north wall of the 18th Century Parish Church was completely gone and all the windows were shattered. The building was restored and re-dedicated in 1950. Laurence Whistler created the finest set of modern engraved glass windows for the church in 1958.

I remember a German bomber being shot down near the Seven Stars pub at East Knighton. Four of us lads went on our bikes to see it but the Army were there and would not let us near it.

A lot of bombs were dropped on Winfrith Heath because that was a dummy aerodrome. The real aerodrome was at Warmwell and we used to get a lot of ambulances coming through our village from there on their way to the Field Hospital.

If we were in school when the siren went, we had to leave the building, go down a path and across fields to the Manor House where we went down into the cellar until the All Clear was given. This was a ¼ mile away and we were running across open fields. It was decided it was too far and so a doorway was knocked through the wall dividing the school playground from the Old Rectory. By this means we could get into the Rectory garden and down into the wine cellar there. We were aged between 5 and 14 and we used to sing and talk to pass the time away. It was a bit of an adventure for us; we were never scared.

I remember the local Keeper; he had a big straggly moustache and wore breeches. He used to have cages that he put in the river to catch pike. The Americans would pull the cages out and take the pike — they made a tasty meal apparently.

I do not remember ever being hungry. We had a big garden and Dad used to grow all his vegetables. We left it to Mum to worry about food. She used to make a lot of jams and chutneys and home-made wine. Dad kept pigs; he used to get little pigs from Dorchester market, fatten them up and then sell them on.

When I was 14½ I took up a 5 year apprenticeship as a motor mechanic at Tilley’s Motor Engineers in Dorchester. An American truck used to stop outside the workshop and we would buy cheap cigarettes off them. I earned 16/- a week. I got the train from Moreton Station to Dorchester at first until my Dad bought me a new bike.

Although there was a war going on I do not remember really ever being afraid, and I have no recollection of the day when peace was declared.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.