大象传媒

This story was told to East Ayrshire Library Staff at a Workshop held in Patna on 28th November 2005.

Richard Rowe was born in 1930 at a place called Holt, in Norfolk on the north Norfolk coast, five miles from the east coast of the North Sea.

He says
鈥淚 remember all the churches not being locked so that you could go in at any time. People were friendlier during the war years. My father kept rabbits and chickens to help with the rationing. There was very few sweets due to rationing, no bananas, plenty of apples though 鈥� as the young ones 鈥渟crumped鈥� the orchards. At school one of the playing fields was turned into gardens for the older pupils to grow crops for the school kitchens. The carpentry teachers taught pupils how to make a greenhouse 鈥� which they did. They erected it themselves. The local farmer used to bring manure to the school to help with the cultivation of crops. Pocket money was earned by newspaper rounds, chopping sticks for the fire, collection of wood from the local forestry, collection of rosehips which were sent away to make Rosehip Syrup, collection of bottles and jam jars for which we got halfpenny each bottle/jar. We also cleaned cars and cleared paths in the winter.

Holt was the birthplace of the Gresham Schools 鈥� schools for super-rich children run by the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers in London. Children from all over the world studied there and during the war a German Heinkel bomber crashed at Clay and the crew marched all the way from Clay to Holt to give themselves up. And when asked how he came to know Holt the Captain replied 鈥� "I was educated at Gresham School".

Richard's eldest brother was a sergeant in the local Home Guard. Richard says :-
"I used to watch them training on the local common land. The local buses used to run on a gas mixture as petrol and diesel were so scarce - they pulled a trailer type which held a store of logs.
I was a messenger boy for the local ARP and a member of the boy scouts and I had to attend church at least twice on Sunday. Sometimes I attended three times with services in the morning, Sunday School in the afternoon, and also an evening service".

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