大象传媒

LIFE IN RURAL DORSET: EVACUATION FROM THE TYNEHAM AREA

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Jane Pearson, a volunteer from Age Concern, Dorchester on behalf of Mrs Winifred (Win) Barrett and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Barrett fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was born at Crossways, near Dorchester in September 1930. The following year my brother Gilbert (Gil) was born and my parents moved to a house called Sodom in East Holme near Wareham, Dorset. This was one of two isolated houses among many others out in the countryside. There was a big wood across the road on one side of our house and meadowland and heath on the other.

In 1939 my Auntie鈥檚 daughter died and my grandmother, who lived in Winfrith, took me and my cousin Pam Taylor (nee Wake) to Hampstead, London to stay with my Auntie. We went to school in London from that Easter until the September. While we were there, big posters and placards were put up on the walls everywhere and all the talk was of the coming war; we had black-out practices and were told what we should be doing to prepare for war, and air-raid shelters were starting to be built. Mum was not happy and wanted me back home in Dorset.

Back in Dorset I was asking, 鈥淲hat is going to happen to us?鈥�, and everyone was saying, 鈥淣othing, it won鈥檛 make a lot of difference to us鈥�. I remember very clearly the contrast between the attitudes of people living in London and those living in Dorset. After we got home the war went on, but we were not really part of it for about two years.

My Dad worked as a Ganger on the railways doing shift work and one night there was an enormous explosion. I remember the bed rocking up in the air and then dropping back down to the floor. My younger brother, Cecil (born in 1938) was crying, and Mum took him into her bed. When Dad got home next morning from his night shift, Mum told him that there was a bomb outside but Dad said he had seen no sign of anything as he cycled home. About three days later the local farmer was taking his dung pots to a field on the other side of our wood to empty them. (Dung pots were small two-wheeled horse-drawn carts. The dung from them was deposited in rows in even little heaps across a field). When the farmer got to his field he found an enormous crater right in the middle of it. Mother had been right 鈥� there had been a bomb 鈥� but our wood had saved us from the blast; there was not even a window broken. So we were very lucky. Later we were told that when the aeroplane came across, the pilot must have thought that the heaps of dung were rows of soldiers鈥� tents that looked the same shape and size from the air, and had dropped his bomb!

Things were generally quiet during 1940 and 1941, but towards the end of 1942 the Army were practising landings at Studland Bay. They would be out for a week practising and would come back exhausted. We were always excited when we heard the lorries coming. There were between 8 and 10 lorries full of soldiers and they would put up their tents in our wood; they would arrive on a Friday night very late but on Monday morning there would be no sign they had ever been there. But always on the Monday night the sirens would go off and the Germans would be coming over and dropping incendiary bombs on us.

We had goats in a shed in the garden and one of the incendiary bombs went straight through a shovel that was leaning against the side of the shed. In desperation my mother threw an enamel babies bath over that one to put it out. These incendiary bombs came out of the 鈥榩lanes in what were called 鈥渂askets鈥� which opened releasing the bombs which fell all round my house, but not one hit the roof. A lot were dropped towards Creech and the fir trees were set alight (but they missed our wood). This was such a big fire that it was on the radio and Lord Haw Haw said that the Germans had hit Holton Heath 鈥� the armaments factory 鈥� but they didn鈥檛 get it. They never got it. When the incendiary bombs were dropped, soldiers would come from Bovington Camp to put the fires out and we could hear them singing as they drove along long before they got to us. One day an aeroplane came down on the heath just outside Lulworth. I saw it and saw the pilot coming down in a parachute. I just felt glad that he was all right.

We had a bank at the bottom of the garden and Dad made a shelter in it that could take six of us. To cover the doorway which was very narrow, he got a rick-sheet, cut it into three strips, nailed them to a piece of wood and hung them across the entrance. Even through three layers of rick-sheet, we could still see the glow of the incendiary bombs when they fell.

I used to go to the church in East Holme to choir practice. When we got there we had to clean the brasses, then we were each given a chocolate biscuit and then we had our choir practice. For a little while there were Italian prisoners working on the adjoining farm there and we used to talk to them. They were extremely lonely chaps. I used to talk to one of them who missed his wife and kids dreadfully. He asked for some aluminium, melted it down and made a signet ring for me. We were told to keep away from them but I was only 12 years old and they were our friends.

One day at the beginning of 1943 we were out playing on the heath near our house when, on the other side of the heath near West Holme, we saw 8 or 10 men standing talking and looking around. But they looked very different to usual. They wore peaked caps with shiny bands round them and were dressed in very long military coats 鈥� smart coats with pleats in them (almost like those worn in the First World War) that hung down to the ground and flowed out behind them as they walked. One bloke was wearing a bowler hat and smoking a cigar. We were very curious about these men but they completely ignored us as we played around them. We were only kids. When we got home, I said, 鈥淚鈥檝e seen Mr Churchill鈥�. I was told not to be stupid 鈥� nobody believed me. But years later I read that Churchill did come down to Dorset to inspect the area prior to it being requisitioned as a training ground 鈥� Tyneham.

It was about the end of November 1943 that we had notice to be out of our house by the 23 December (literally a month鈥檚 notice) because they were going to make a large area that included our home into a firing range. All the houses, farms and smallholdings between East Creech and Lulworth and East Holme to the sea that included the village of Tyneham, had to be evacuated. East Creech, particularly, had a large number of farms and smallholdings. (People who had lived on the perimeter of the training area were not allowed to move back to their homes until the early 1970s). We had had no warning of this, it just came out of the blue and my Dad was very upset 鈥� hurt, angry and upset. This was his home and he didn鈥檛 want to leave it, and what would happen to all his animals? He was in such a state that Mum kept my brother, Gil, back from school to be with him and help him. Mum was very stoical about it. She had an expression 鈥渂abies come with their own love鈥� meaning that things happen for a purpose and that everything falls into place. She went to church regularly and believed very much that God was up in heaven. (Years later, when they went to the moon she said to me, 鈥淲ell, our Win, I always thought I was going up to heaven when I died but now they鈥檝e been and there鈥檚 nothing up there so now I don鈥檛 know where I鈥檓 going!).

We had to be gone by Christmas because the Army were going to put the guns on the ridge behind our house and fire over it. There was a big shortage of houses then, but we were allocated No 2, The Littons in Wool. It was a brand new house 鈥� nobody had lived in it before. But my Dad had a moke (an animal that had a pony鈥檚 body with a donkey鈥檚 head) and he couldn鈥檛 take her to Wool because there was nowhere to house her. She was called Betty and I swear he loved her more than anybody in the world! Places were very hard to find but, as the Government had given us this very nice place and we would not accept it, they washed their hands of us. So, with about 10 days left we still had nowhere to go and we still had to be out. We had an old uncle who suddenly died. He had been living in Bath Row at Blacknoll, Winfrith 鈥� about 6 miles away from East Holme. So my aunties got down there and cleared the house out. They were pulling the drawers out and tipping the contents on the open fire. In doing this one of my aunties was unfortunate enough to tip a First World War bullet into the fire. It exploded and went into her leg. It went through the fleshy part, fortunately, but it took her a long time to recover.

We had an old billy-goat at this time. He was a big goat with a long black hairy coat, a great long beard and two big curling horns, and he stank to high heaven. He had turned nasty and Dad was the only one who would go near him 鈥� we were warned not to; if you did he would knock you over. One day Dad decided enough was enough and that Billy would have to go. The keeper shot him and Dad skinned him and was halfway through curing the skin when we had to leave our house. We had an old apple tree in the garden and Dad hung the half-cured goatskin, fur side up, over a horizontal part of the trunk of this tree, and left it there. When soldiers were billeted there 3 days later they found this goatskin and thought it was a mat. They took it inside and laid it in front of the fire. We heard it took ages for them to get rid of the smell from the house!

Our house was cleared but we couldn鈥檛 find anyone to move us so the Fire Brigade did it with a pantechnicon-van. Being the man of the house and because of the fact that he had a moke to walk from East Holme to Winfrith, Dad left at 9 am on removal day 鈥� and we never saw him again until 10 o鈥檆lock that night! The Ship Inn at Wool was on his route! With Dad on his way we got the van loaded. We had chickens in a crate and they were loaded, but mother had sealed up the bee box and that went in the van too. This was all right until we got to Bath Row. Mother said to one of the men, 鈥淭he first thing you must take out are the bees鈥�. He said, 鈥淲hat bees?鈥�, and mother said, 鈥淭hose in that box there鈥�. They had had no idea that earlier they had loaded a box of bees into the van and utterly refused to touch them, so Mum and Gil had to clamber into the van and take them out! In another smaller lorry, amongst other things, we had also brought our goats and cats. Dad was bringing the chicken house in the cart pulled by Betty. The house was very small but we all squeezed in. However we only lived there for about 6 months and then we moved about 50 yards into a bigger thatched cottage (83 Blacknoll Lane) when the old man who lived there died. Mum and Dad lived there for the next 40 years.

This cottage was situated at the bottom of Blacknoll Hill on Winfrith Heath. The whole heath formed part of a dummy aerodrome; trenches were dug on it and we heard there were lights but we couldn鈥檛 see them. The Headquarters of this dummy aerodrome was near what is now the West Gate to the UKAEA site. It looked like a garden shed and the rest of it was underground. The dummy aerodrome was supposed to deflect 鈥榩lanes away from Warmwell aerodrome. I remember climbing Blacknoll with my friends 鈥� though we were not supposed to 鈥� looking up and seeing what looked like the dome of a big cathedral with lights in the ceiling but which was actually tracer bullets raining down on us! We never thought of the danger. I never felt frightened for myself, but I did feel frightened for my Mum; she had to do some frightening things to keep us safe - putting out incendiary bombs being just one of them.

With our move, Dad now worked on the railway between Wool and Moreton. He had to walk the lines checking them for damage. Early one morning on his way to work on his motorbike, he had not gone far before a soldier with a gun stopped him and told him that anti-personnel mines had been dropped overnight and were spread all around, and that until they had all been accounted for he could not go through. Dad said that he had important work to do and in the end the soldier gave in and let him go on!

We had clothes coupons, but my Mum always thought that it was better to fill our bellies than put clothes on our backs, so she bartered the clothes coupons for food. Clothes were handed down and shared between friends and neighbours. When they were finally no good for anything they were cut up and used as dusters.

When I was 14 I went by car to Marchwood, Southampton to visit some friends. On our return journey we found ourselves in thick fog and we had to go through the New Forest. There were no signposts anywhere and the main road was hardly distinguishable from the minor roads. We kept getting out at crossroads trying to work out where we were. We got completely lost. I don鈥檛 know how we got home or how long it took us.

I started work when I was 14 in 1944 and was in service at Binnegar Hall near Wareham for six months. D-Day had happened by then. I remember that there were a lot of American soldiers in the area. There were white soldiers at Binnegar Hall and black soldiers billeted in Broadmayne near Dorchester. The American soldiers had half of the Hall, though there were not many of them left by the time I worked there. They used to come into the kitchen to talk to the cook. I remember this chap coming in. He was about 18 years old. He sat down and just cried and cried, he was so homesick.

I remember D-Day. I was sitting on the top of Blacknoll and the planes were flying over my head 鈥� coming from Tarrant Rushton airfield near Blandford. Every one was towing a glider and they stretched as far as the eye could see both behind and in front of me. Two, and possibly three, rows of 鈥榩lanes roaring overhead on their way to France. It was a wonderful sight and one I will never forget.

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