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Wartime Childhood at Pitchford Park Farm, Shropshire

My memories of the Second World War 1939-45 are those of a child. I was born in 1934, was just five years old when war broke out, and the eldest of what became a family of eight children. My father was a farm worker at Pitchford Park Farm, on the estate of General Sir Charles and Lady Sybil Grant of Pitchford Hall, situated some six or seven miles from Shrewsbury Town.

For the first two years of the war we were living in a small semi-detached agricultural cottage consisting of two small rooms up and two down, with no basic comforts. Lighting was with oil lamps or candles. Water, which we got from a pump, was a constant threat to health and in short supply. The adults used to call it ‘moleskin water’ because it was such poor quality drinking water. As a result of the poor water quality, one of my brothers Frank and I developed tuberculosis of the glands. My brother also developed it in the lungs and had to spend eighteen months in Shirlot Sanatorium on Wenlock Edge.

Our cottage was called Windy Mundy. It was in an isolated position, south west of Pitchford Park Farm and east of what was to become Condover Airfield. It was on a farm track in the middle of fields, which was used as a short cut to Ryton Railway Station where milk from the farm was taken for consumption in the London market.

As children, we became more aware of the war when Father joined the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV) and wore an armband with the letters ‘L.D.V.’ on it. He later became a member of the Home Guard when it was formed in 1940. Then he wore a khaki uniform when on duty in the evenings and sometimes at the weekends. He also helped to man the searchlight batteries at times, to spot German aircraft to enable the Royal Artillery to do their work and bring down the German bombers with their heavy artillery, and protect the British public. On clear evenings we would spend many hours watching the convoys of German aircraft flying overhead and watching the flashes as they dropped their evil bombs on nearby towns and factories. Mother would discuss the suffering some would be experiencing, and reassure us children that no harm would come to us provided we observed the blackout and not show any lights.

Mother’s two brothers were called up for military service, her younger brother Douglas going out to the Far East and fighting the Japanese in India and Malaya. I recall her brother Alec coming home after the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940 and speaking of its horrors. But most importantly he spoke of the comradeship he had experienced and how unselfishly and courageously he had been saved from drowning by a fellow soldier in the heat of battle. He was later to get killed in Normandy on 3rd September 1944, leaving a wife and four young daughters. He was buried in Bayeux War Cemetery, Calvados, France along with 4,144 other Commonwealth soldiers plus a further 1,800 Commonwealth soldiers with no known graves.

For centuries most cottagers in a rural economy relied on the pig for their staple diet. It was in 1940 that food rationing was introduced which created hardship for many families. Food was rationed for both humans and animals. We were granted coupons to buy food for the pigs and hens. To make animal food go further, women and children gleaned heads of corn that were lost during harvesting. Small potatoes left on the field after harvesting were also picked. These bi-products of harvest were put into the clothes boiler, boiled and mixed with surplus vegetables. Animal meal would also be added and mixed. After cooling it would be fed to the pigs and poultry to produce both eggs and meat. We also gathered acorns for the pigs. Father applied for permission to kill a pig for our own consumption. This was granted after inspection by someone from the Ministry of Food. On this occasion we were granted permission to kill a pig of 8 score (160 lb). This was in the winter of 1940-41. There were no cold stores during this time and animals had to be killed during the cold winter months. Having permission to kill a pig, Father decided to sacrifice quality for quantity and bend the rules a little by killing the mother of the pig. The breeding sow was a considerably larger pig of 18 to 20 score (360-400 lb), which created a problem where to hang it after killing it. The meat had to hang for up to 48 hours to sweat and dry out before salting and curing for bacon and joints of meat. It was decided before killing to hang the pig up on an oak tree overhanging the farm track. A pig of this size hanging by its back legs would be roughly 10 feet in length. It would have its stomach pegged open to air and dry, ready for salting. The front legs would be sticking forward, rather like the arms of an armchair.

Killing a pig always took place during the cold winter months when it would be dark around 4.30 pm. The farm track the pig was overhanging was occasionally used by members of the public to get to Frodsley village or the railway station at Ryeton. On the night we killed the pig, around 6.00 to 6.30 pm, we children had not yet gone to bed. One of the land girls from the farm was on her way to catch a train at Ryeton station. It was very dark when she bumped into this large, white, cold object which she believed to be a ghost. In fact, she had walked into the stomach of the pig hanging in the oak tree. As she tried to move away, she found herself stuck between the pig’s front legs. By this time she believed she had been grabbed by her imaginary ghost. The land girl ran screaming into our house through the front door which was unlocked at the time. She was quite hysterical, absolutely petrified and trembling like a leaf. She gave us children quite a fright with her screaming. She was quite certain there was a ghost and he had grabbed hold of her by putting his arms around her. For a split second during the panic and trauma no one was quite certain what this imaginary ghost was. Then someone remembered the pig hanging in the tree over the path. When the land girl realised what had given her such a fright, and recovered from her terrifying experience, we all had a good laugh. It was the butt of many laughs and jokes for many months and years afterwards. This event would not have happened but for the blackout. But for the war no one would have walked along this lonely track without a torch. Careless use of lights or fires would have been ideal targets for German bombers to unload their deadly bombs.

In autumn 1941 we moved to the north end of the farm to two small cottages called Oak Cottages. This was after my 7th birthday. I could now start school. It was only a short walk of just over one mile to the school at Pitchford. The family living at the house before our arrival left as two of their sons developed diphtheria due to the poor drainage and poor quality water. One of their sons died but I am not sure what happened to their second son. At this time around 20 battle-fatigued Royal Marines were sent to convalesce and relax by working on the farm. This was the only time we experienced more workers than there were tools for them to use. Around this time too we saw the first Bren Gun Carriers going along the country roads. They would be involved with the soldiers we saw crawling along ditches and hedge banks. This made us children quite nervous. We had no idea what to expect. Was it the real war or a pretend war situation?

It was the British and American Air Forces that played a more active part in our experience of the war. Oak Cottages was situated just off the end of the Condover Airfield runway where they were training pilots to fly in Miles Master and Harvard aircraft. There was a small coppice between our cottage and the end of the runway and I can recall many aircraft coming to grief in this coppice. We young children would run to the crash site to see if we could get a small piece of the crashed aircraft as a souvenir. Shawbury and Atcham Airfields were not far distant, and on fine summer days we would watch the aircraft practising dog fights (we always assumed they were practising).

One day they were extremely active. We were watching during school break when one of the aircraft made a very sharp turn, crashing into the aircraft it was having a dog fight with. This occurred reasonably close to where we were watching. Some of us boys ran to the crash site of one of the airplanes and picked up a couple of live bullets, which was a very stupid and irresponsible thing to do, and took them to school. We were 9 or 10 years old at the time. One of the boys called Gordon decided he would put his bullet in a crack in a gate post, drove a nail through a piece of wood, placed the nail on the cap of the bullet and hit it with a hammer. There was an almighty bang. The cartridge case flew up in the air, splitting the post and singeing his hair as it flew past his head. Fortunately no one was hurt.

We were now late for school and in serious trouble with the head teacher for going to the crashed aeroplane. While the three of us were being told off and threatened with the cane, standing by the side of the teacher’s desk quite close to the fire, the boy called Henry stupidly and without thought decided to get rid of the evidence and threw his bullet into the fire. There was an unholy explosion, scattering the fire and cracking the rear of the fire grate. It was only luck and good fortune that no one was injured or killed. By now the teacher was dancing and trembling with rage and no doubt suffering from a considerable amount of fear. Now was the time for the punishment. She gave us the biggest caning any young boys would ever experience and we surely deserved it.

I also recall gliders being towed by four-engined planes, the makes I am not sure of. We were told the gliders were troop carriers for soldiers who were being dropped by parachute. One soldier told my father and us boys that jumping from an aircraft by parachute over an unknown destination was one of the most terrifying acts that it was possible for a man to experience. From time to time we would also see these very large Sunderland Flying Boats flying overhead. I believe they probably came from Beaumaris on Anglesey. It was a fairly common sight to see Wellington and Lancaster bombers, in quite large numbers, flying in formation overhead and maybe on a mission over Europe.

There was a prisoner of war camp at Acton Burnell, around two and a half miles from where we were living. In the earlier part of the war it housed Italian prisoners of war who came to work on the farm at times. If memory serves me correctly, they wore a brown uniform with yellow and red patches sewn into the uniform to distinguish them from other uniformed personnel. Father always said they were not very familiar with farm work, so we got very little work out of them during the working day. Later on the camp housed German prisoners. They wore a similar uniform and were not as lazy as the Italians. Many of them were used to farm work and did a very good day’s work. Farm work during the war was a very harsh, hard occupation. Farm workers were having to work 14-15 hour days and sometimes more during harvest. There was little extra help but for female and child labour. The slogan at the time was ‘Dig for Victory’ and we all had to take our part, regardless of age. Child labour was common and was encouraged when children were little more than babes in arms. Planting potatoes with a measuring stick to get the correct distance apart; picking potatoes in the cold autumn months; singling sugar beet, or, as it is sometimes known, hoeing beet. We used to help in the hay and corn harvest, and, like the nursery rhyme says about ‘Little Boy Blue’, we would be under the hay cock, fast asleep, tired out from our labours.

This story was collected by Becky Barugh and submitted to the People’s War site by Graham Brown of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of EG Davies and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

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