大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by Cornwall CSV Storygatherer, Martine Knight, on behalf of Ada Pooley. Her story was given to the Trebah WW2 Video Archive, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2004. The Trebah Garden Trust understands the terms and conditions of the site.

I wanted to be a nurse when war broke out, but my father wasn鈥檛 happy about that so I joined the Ministry of Food. I was involved in the issuing of ration books and ID cards. Our office was in Coinagehall Street to begin with, but when, about two years later, Helston Borough & Kerrier District councils amalgamated we moved into larger offices in Cross Street.

I lived on a farm with my family. My father was also a butcher and, before the war, had his own slaughterhouse, but that was stopped and he had to buy meat from the abattoir. The farm also produced milk and my father would always give some to any passing troops 鈥� he said that it was the least he could do as they were going to fight for us. Our farm became very popular with the troops!

My father & I went to Falmouth to welcome home the troops evacuated from Dunkirk. Some were in a very bad state. One gave me a beautiful ebony cross, which he had been given by some French nuns. He was in the 10th Royal Hussars and so I scratched that on the back of the cross, which I still have.

There were some Canadian ground crew billeted at our farm. Two were Buddy (who is now 93 and still in touch with us) and Jack Watson. One day Jack went out without his customary 鈥淕oodbye Ma鈥� to my mother. We never saw him alive again. He was an electrician and, whilst working that day, touched a 15000v cable and was killed instantly. My father insisted his body be brought back to our house, rather than lying in the mortuary, until his military funeral. He looked like an angel in his coffin. We still keep in touch with his family.

One local shopkeeper, Mrs. Lawrence, asked me to help her with some ration forms and, as a reward, said that she鈥檇 save me some of my favourite chocolate (Cadbury鈥檚 Sultana) when it came in. I still had to use my coupons, but at least it was reserved for me.

Early in the war Nansloe Manor was used to billet British troops, then for Italian PoW鈥檚 and then German PoW鈥檚.
Two of the German鈥檚 worked on our farm. One called Ernst was a cabinetmaker and he used to pick up any bits of wood, particularly railway sleepers, to make things from. I鈥檝e got several of his pieces including a cabinet made from our old piano and a lovely jewel box.
He took an old washstand that we used for cutting up meat and transformed it into a beautiful piece of furniture, which I still have.
We kept in touch with him right up to his death 3 years ago.
They were just ordinary Germans as we were ordinary British people.

During one air raid a German plane came down over the cricket field 鈥� where Culdrose is now 鈥� and all that was found of the pilot was his hand.

My father, mother, brother, sister and I once went to Penzance and an air raid started. We ran to get my father out of the 50/- tailors on the corner of Causewayhead. We went with the staff down into the basement shelter, but my mother was claustrophobic and couldn鈥檛 stand it. She said, 鈥� I can鈥檛 stay down here even if I鈥檓 killed.鈥� so we all went out into Bread Street and ran down to the railway station, where our car was parked. Just as we got there the all clear sounded.

In 1950 my father rented Nansloe Manor to turn into a guesthouse. We had to do quite a bit of restoration there. The stairs were originally beautiful highly polished mahogany, but when we took over it was pockmarked from the soldiers boots and the ceilings were also full of bayonet marks, but such things didn鈥檛 seem important when lives were at risk.

Video details CWS040604 15:35:45 to 15:55:23

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