´óÏó´«Ã½

At the beginning of the war, I was fifteen, and my younger sister Greta was eleven. I can remember making a lot of sandwiches for soldiers with my mother - we always seemed to be making sandwiches. The army convoys used to go up and down the road, and there was a very steep hill called Whiteside which ran up alongside our field. When there was snow, the convoys nearly always seemed to get stuck on this hill. We used to go down with great jugs of cocoa and piles of sandwiches and feed all these soldiers who were stamping about in the cold, waiting to try and get their convoy up the hill. Greta and I used to rather enjoy that.

My eldest sister Katharine had become a WAAF and Patricia, who was also older, was a WREN. Greta and I were still at school. My school, Wycombe Abbey, closed down because of the war. I hated it, so I was delighted because I was able to leave. I shared a governess with a friend for a bit at home. Then I did some farming work and forestry, and my education just petered out. I helped my mother, and cooked and looked after the chickens and rabbits - we kept a lot of rabbits for food. There was always plenty to do.

I was very impressed when I saw my older sisters in uniform. I don’t think I really worried about them, but we were always very pleased when they came home. My mother was always sending them parcels of food, all sorts of things - vegetables from the garden, and even eggs. I can remember her packing up eggs, most beautifully, wrapping them in newspaper and putting them in egg boxes and corrugated paper. They always arrived safely, none of them were ever broken, which seemed quite amazing. I never wanted to be in the Forces myself. I was quite happy at home.

We were very lucky to be away from the air raids. We were quite a long way from Newcastle. Occasionally, we could hear a raid in the far distance, but it never came anywhere close to use.

But we did meet soldiers from the hospital in Hexham. We used to invite them out and have them for tea in the garden. I think my mother worked terribly hard, doing all sorts of things for the troops. She used to have a working party at our house every week. Everybody sat around the ping-pong table rolling bandages and knitting for the troops.

Then we had some evacuees - that was a terrific business. We were told we were to have some expectant mothers, and mothers with small babies, from Newcastle as evacuees. So we cleaned out the big loft above the stables and got it ready for them. We were given pallets for them to sleep on. We made it as nice as we could, and they all came, but they only stayed about a week. They couldn’t stand the country. They went home, leaving the place in the most appalling mess. It took us longer to clean it up after them than it did to get it ready.

Later, we had one or two other evacuees. One little girl stayed for quite a long time with her mother. But eventually they all went back to Newcastle. They didn’t like the country: it was too quiet for them. And they didn’t like the owls.

Then we had troops billeted on us in one part of the house, which had been the servants’ quarters. Greta and I enjoyed having the soldiers around because they were very nice men and they helped us with our ponies and did the stables beautifully, so we were rather pleased.

My father’s factory was very busy during the war, making search light reflectors. He just kept on working, going in to Newcastle by train every day. We used to take him to the station in the pony and trap because petrol was short.

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