大象传媒

My family owned a magnificent four wheeled ex-fairground caravan which was parked on a farm just behind the sand dunes at Ingoldmells,Lincs. Earlier my father had had to have it relocated because where it originally stood was the land that Billy Butlin bought to create his first holiday camp (Skegness) I believe around 1935/6.
We had wonderful,happy holidays in it until we left 'The End Un' for the last time in August 1939. I was six years old. In those days we had an Austin seven (AAK 940) for the five of us, Mum,Dad,Tom and Arthur and me,Kathleen. Our luggage was carried in a trunk strapped to an external rack.
The Army requisitioned the caravan and when we next saw it in 1947 it was just a ruin with swallows nesting in its skeleton.

Holidays at the seaside were forbidden during the war because of the defences of coiled barbed wire and mines on the beaches against possible invasion.
My parents had a pig and poultry farm and were kept busy producing food and so I spent parts of my summer holidays staying with my various Aunties, Lydia, Dolly and Evelyn. In those far off days I travelled by train from my home in Whittington in Derbyshire to Pyebridge and Ironville and Codnor Park stations in Nottinghamshire all on my own with no fears for my safety.

A real wartime memory was when staying with Auntie Evelyn. She regularly had delivered a pile of squares approx 2'x2'of Khaki netting. Around the edges of these we threaded laces so that eventually they would be placed over helmets and pulled tight and tied so that soldiers could weave twigs and leaves into the netting creating a camoflage when worn on their heads. I suppose as they stuck their heads above the trenches to fire at the enemy they looked more like bushes!
In those wartime days her wireless was run off an accumulator that had to be carried carefully to a shop in the village to be recharged. I remember that it was a glass jar with a wooden carrying handle. It had in it electrodes and acid to produce electricity.
Auntie Gladys and Uncle Frank lived close to the St Leger Race Course at Doncaster. I remember crying when I saw showmen on the fringe of the racecourse tying men in chains, I now realise they were escapologists entertaining the racegoers.

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