大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People's War siteby CSV Storygatherer Liz Norbury on behalf of Sheila Murphy. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

I can remember very clearly the day war broke out. It was a Sunday, and I was with all the other children in the choir stalls at Hayle Methodist Church. Suddenly, the caretaker walked up the aisle, right up to the pulpit, and told the minister that war had been declared. I was only eight at the time, and I didn't appreciate the full significance of what he said. For me, it was a delightful interruption to a long, boring sermon!
The next thing I remember is the first week of the blackout. My grandmother and I had gone to stay with my great aunt in Falmouth, and we had to travel back on the bus in darkness. It took hours to get home. I though we would never make it.
There were air raid shelters in the streets of Hayle, but I don't think anyone used them. Instead, we went underneath the stairs. It was said to be the safest place in the house. Luckily, we never had to find out if this was true.
At school, we didn't have paper - it wasn't available. We had to use slates. Everything you did was wiped out, so you had no record of it.
There were no oranges available, so all the babies were given orange juice, to ensure they had enough Vitamin C. Those of us who were older had orange jelly, which was a concentrate of orange. I remember having it on steamed pudding at school: it was absolutely gorgeous.
Although we were rationed, we didn't have a great deal of difficulty as far as food was concerned, unlike people living in urban areas, because of the number of farms around Hayle. I don't think we really felt deprived. There was always cream and butter. The bread we used to have was scrumptious. It wasn't refined in any way. I have never had bread like it. At Penzance Grammar School, we used to grow our own vegetables - things like beans, which we would not otherwise have had. One thing we didn't have much of was sweets.
Another thing that looms large in my memory is the arrival of evacuees. A group came from Bermondsey, one of the worst parts of London. They came in a dreadful state, with little in the way of clothes. My aunt had two of them, and I remember that she had to put them in a bath before they came into the house - she wasn't sure they were clean enough to come in - and then completely clothe them in a manner which was acceptable to her, and to the people of Hayle.
As well as these evacuees, we had children from a Jewish school. They used Hayle Methodist Church as a school. They were allowed to do anything they liked on a Sunday, unlike us, but they weren't allowed to do anything on a Saturday, which intrigued us.
At Penzance Grammar School, we shared the school with a group from Plymouth for a short time. They went to school in the morning, and we went in the afternoon.
Later, we had quite a few girls from Belgium and France who shared out school. Once, we were taken as a group by our French mistress to a class which had been set up for the French and Belgian girls, and we met some Free French troops who were stationed in England.
The Enniskillen Regiment was stationed in Hayle - they had lovely thick Irish accents - and we also two American Army camps, one for whites, and one for blacks. They didn't mix at all. A lot of landing craft were made and assembled in the harbour in Hayle, and the blacks did a lot of this work. The white soldiers were preparing for the D Day landings. I can remember one of the chaps gave me a pen, because he said he wouldn't be wearing it again. But he survived the war.
The black camp had a white chaplain, and they had a wonderful choir. I can remember them giving concerts. We could never understand why they weren't allowed to fraternise with the whites.
When the Americans first came, it was very exciting. Before the war, we didn't meet a great many people - there wasn't tourism in the same way that there is now. We knew most people in the area, and we didn't ever go very far. From having a very insular life, we were suddenly surrounded by all these people with different cultures. You began to realise that although Cornwall was lovely, there were lots of other cultures with something to offer. It was amazing, really.
Considering the number of young men of various nationalities we had stationed in Hayle, we never felt in any danger walking through the town. I never heard of anyone being attacked.
I can remember planes going over the town in 1944, either immediately after D Day, or building up to it. Wave after wave came across.
J F Pool, which made munitions, used to have a bomb warning system which announced that the bombs were five minutes away, or right overhead. You could hear it all over the town, so you knew the bombs were coming, and you always thought you might be bombed.
We didn't have much in the way of bombs, although here were some on the Towans in direct line with the power station there.
We couldn't go on to the beaches because they were mined - but there was a part of one beach which wasn't mined. We were there one day when a British plane flew right into the minefield. Luckily, no one was hurt. We were all agog to see the men being taken off the plane.
Quite of few of my older sisters' contemporaries were conscripted. We knew several people who were killed.
On VE Day, we were summoned to the hall, and the head announced the ending of the was in Europe. There was a big VE Day do at St John's Street in Hayle.

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