大象传媒

The Borringdon Arms, Turnchapel, passed to new tenants as my father was recalled to the R.A.F. He was on 'reserve' from the Royal Flying Corps, where he was a navigator.

So we went from a twenty-four roomed house with stables and a large rose garden to a two-roomed cottage at the top of Turnchapel's steep hill. This consisted of two rooms, bedroom and livingroom, two double beds, one for three of us children, the other for my mum and dad, plus one wardrobe for everyone's clothes. The living room had a coal fire, two armchairs, table and chairs and a sewing machine. A flagged passage way led to the front door. The gas stove served as the only kitchen space. We ate there, washed dishes and ourselves - not in the same water!!!

The coal house was behind the front door which led out to a cobbled courtyard. There was a standpipe which provided water for three other cottages. Four steps led down to two bucket type toilets, used by the same number of people.

The Blitz started slowly at first, the siren sounding the alarm, soon followed by the 'all clear'.

Mum had a job as barmaid down in the village. Two pounds four shillings R.A.F marriage allowance. The rent was four shillings and not enough to keep 3.5 childdren, mum was pregnant again. As the raid started whe would run up the hill and return again after the alert. As the raids increased in duration and frequency we used to run up another hill to Fort Stampford, manned by the Army. Soon most of the village left their homes at 6.0 p.m. and returned at 8.0 a.m. the next day.

Up to that time not much building work was evident. Now there was a rash of barbed wire, pillar boxes, sentries and sentry boxes. In the future there was to be much discussion on 'the right to roam'. The public had no say here, our beloved Jennycliff, its beach, golf course and large 'firing wall' which at one point in my young life I thoght was the end of the world. We walked towards it one day with our nursemaid. History had the world as saucer shaped and I believed I was going over the edge into oblivion. I screamed all the way home but did not explain my fears. The Well field the village football pitch was out of bounds, being dug up to build an underground aircraft plotting station?

So our lives continued, food and fuel rationing beginning to bite, until they bombed the Turnchapel oil tanks. I was the first out of the small door cut into the large double iron gates. I bolted back in again scattering people as I went. My mother boxed my ears for being unruly. I screamed "the world's on fire, the world's on fire". Thats what it looked like, flames and dense black smoke soared in the air. Everywhere was covered with grey flakes of paint. The sea was on fire by Hooe Lake, the wood pickling yard was alight, the burning oil bubbled over, the five concrete pens used to hold the oil tanks. The flaming oil spread out, burning everything in its path, edging towards the village. Both Hooe and Turnchapel were evacuated. The only time the village mortuary was used, was to hold the bodies of firemen killed in the blaze. As a child I used to push my tin pram along the road to the mortuary "carry your pram" hissed my friend "or you will wake the dead". One day I dropped it and ran screaming at the top of my voice "I've woken the dead" repeatedly.

Soon after the bombing of the tanks my father came up from Cornwall. A new aerodrome was being bult at St Eval on the north coast near Padstow.

According to him the raids were 'chicken feed'. He soon changed his mind. A landmine fell at Cattedown across the narrow strip of water from the village. As he opened the door the blast took it off its hinges. Mum always said "run", dad said "duck". He pulled me to the ground as a bomb whilstled overhead. I wasn't frightened of bombs, red hot shrapnel. I hated searchlights. If 'Jerry' could not see me, he couldn't kill me. Seemed sensible to me!

Next weekend my father had to return an old bus to Mountbatten and pick up a new one. We self evacuated to Cornwall, house sight unseen. It was a beautiful guest house called 'Golden Burn'. It had its own private sandy beach. Three bedrooms, two up one down, no gas or electricy no running water, oil lamps, calor gas stove and oven, coal fire, bucket toilet. One room the same as the cottage for eating and sitting. A wooden veranda covered the back of the house. The front faced the sea and cliffs of the north devon coast. We washed the dishes and ourselves on the veranda and threw the slops over the garden wall which formed a small grey sludgey river which stank and was covered in flies. Our landlord, a French man, emptied the toilet bucket into a cess pit in the chicken run beside the house.

The school was over two miles away outside the aerodrome. For the first time in my young life I felt rejected. There were six evacuees, two Scot, two from Plymouth City and us children from the village. We were 'furriners' much too streetwise for the locals. We walked to school around an 'island' of fields, to the right in the morning, left coming back. The whole of Porthgothan Bay was requisitioned by the R.A.F. Pilots and their familes lived in the beautiful cliff side house in the bay. Every morning the big canvass covered lorries transported the pilots to work.

It was the time of the night bombing raids. One evening I sat on the garden gate and counted 189 bombers circling the sky. Their fighter escorts flew off first, pigmy mothers herding their gigantic kids. When all were in formation, they headed out to sea. Next morning they returned. The bulk of them landed before we went to school. The stragglers struggled home, smoke pouring from their engines. We stood on hedges shouting encouragement, "go on, go on, you're nearly home". Some made it some didn't and crashed in the valley. We directed the crash crews, fire tenders and ambulances, with instructions, "two five barred gates, through the first to fields, after that its stiles, have to go on foot". It must have been heart breaking to see the flames and smoke and not be able to reach your mate. I like to think that was a kid's contribution to the war effort. In addition we 'shook' sugar beet, stacked hay and cornsheaves, picked potatoes, milked cows, cleaned their stalls, deivered the milk, cream and butter. All for one shilling a week.

On a trip back to Plymouth in another bus, we boarded the Torpoint ferry. From my seat in the bus I could not see the ferry ramp. My father drove forward. I was screaming "you will drown us dad. Dad, dad stop". That was the last of my fears thank goodness. My father drove to the City centre. Nothing stood. It was a sea of rubble. He got out and stood looking lost. He told my mother that he could see Turnchapel but had no idea how to get there.

It was back to Cornwall for the next four years. My father was posted to India and spent four years in Burma. My mother received two letters in that time. To me he was always a stranger after that long absence.

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