大象传媒

During the war we had a fight over the village, with spitfires and german planes, one of the emeny planes was shot down on the Beeches at the edge of the village. A land girl close by, was first on the scene. The pilot was injured. The co pilot handed his gun to the land girl. The co pilot when asked why he did not go to assist the pilot, said he did not even know him he had only seen him for the first time that morning. They put a guard on the plane so no one could get near but an old lady sat at the gate entrance to the field and collected money for the spitefire fund.

The Blandford Forum siren could be heard clearly in the village as a warning to the Sargent of the Search Light. This was used in the village when the german planes went over they picked them up in the beam, keeping the aircrafts in the beam until they had passed over the village.

The air raid warden rode a bicycle round the villiage blowing his whistle to warn us of a raid. All the house had blackout curtains because no light had to show, otherwise you had a visit from the warden.
Father and other villages joined the homeguard. As we lived near on A350 road the bridge had a lot of explosives hidden under it this was one of the duties of the
Homeguard to guard and blow up if necessary.

The food was rationed but in the villages we did not find it too hard, fruit such as apples, pears and plums trees were grown in the orchards, potatoes were pick up in the fields when harvested. We managed by saving a little of sugar and butter which enable us to bake cake. Everyone seemed to
help each other. There was always eggs available. The chicken were fed on corn which was gathered by going out into the corn fields after this has been cut and gathering that was left - this was called laising.
The Motto was "Dig for Victory"

I remember my father and a neighbour digging out an air raid shelter in the orchard close to the house and covered it with boards. fortunually we never used it.

My family had two evacauees aged about six years old staying with us they had never seen any animals so seeing a cow for the first time they did not know where the milk came.

In the evenings on the radio we could get news in English from Germany by William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw) I think most people listened to him just to hear what he said, not always the truth.

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