大象传媒

My mother kept chickens and as eggs were very scarce Dad took them to work (Charles Wells Brewery) and raffled them for the Mrs Churchill's Aid to Russia Fund. He sent off the money he raised and he received a thank you letter written and signed by Clementine Churchill, dated January 1942. It read:

"Dear Sir,
I send you my warmest thanks for your generous contribution to my 'Aid to Russia' fund. I have been deeply touched by the splendid response to my broadcast appeal. Money has been pouring in, and the fund, as I expect you may have heard now stands at well over a Million Pounds.
I only regret that it is impossible for me to reply adequately to every kind letter that I receive. But believe me I am deeply appreciative of the gifts and letters that have reached me from you and thousands like you. Your contributions will enable the Red Cross to send off substantial supplies of the drugs and surgical equipment of which our Russian Allies are urgently in need." Your sincerely, Clementine S. Churchill.

Neighbours used to bring us their waste food to feed to the chickens. She made it into mash and fed it to the chickens and in return they used to be given eggs.

My mother had lots of blackcurrant bushes on her allotment and she used to make jam with the fruit. During the first year of rationning people were allowed extra sugar to make jam and mother made 100 lbs on blackcurrant jam that year. We lived on that jam, we had it on bread for tea.

My mother and auntie Joyce ran two green grocery shops, one in Foster Hill Road. I think it was the Council that turned over an area of the Bedford Park to agriculture. They planted tomato plants and the produce was allocated to local green grocers to sell by a the means of a draw. My mother was lucky enough to have her name drawn out. We rented a window cleaning barrow from 'Dove's' in Tavistock Street and to collect the tomatoes to take to the shop in Foster Hill Road to sell.

I remember a group of us kids collecting old newspaper, cardboard and old rubbish from De Parys Avenue and other areas of Bedford. Again, using a Dove's barrow.

I was a member of the 'Bedford Victory Crusaders', a group of schoolgirls. We knitted jumpers for the bombed out children in London.

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