大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Ken on behalf of Peter Widdett
and has been added to the site with his permission. Peter Widdett fully understands the
site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Peter Widdett remembers the war from the aspect of a young child. He was nine years
old when it ended but he has clear memories of certain events of those times. The
relevance of some made clearer by his mother鈥檚 explanation and stories.

鈥淚n 1941 I was quite young but remembered my Dad leaving home to join the army,
and wondering at seeing my Mum crying. My Dad went into the 8th Army and in his
letters home he would include little sketches for me; of things to do with army life;
tanks and vehicles and so on. I do particularly recall a scene drawn by him, of army
lorries crossing the river Rhine, on pontoon bridges.

鈥淢y memories are of the period when my family lived near Farnham, in Surrey. But
earlier, before what I can recall, we lived in Kent and mother would tell me of the air
combats she had seen then, during the Battle of Britain. She was very patriotic and
inspired by Winston Churchill and the two of us would listen to his speeches
throughout the war. For me, as a small boy the whole business was very thrilling, a
kind of exciting show put on by grown-ups. Mum took a weekly colour magazine
called 鈥業llustrated鈥� [a contemporary of the more famous black-and- white 鈥楶icture
Post鈥橾 and I learned lot about the war by reading that and newspapers.

鈥淭he Farnham area was more rural then than it is today and I remember quite well the
many Prisoners of War who were put to work on the farms. They were German, and
Italians and it was generally thought they were not unhappy to be doing this, in a fairly
safe area; well out of the business of fighting. There was a funny incident one day. A
prisoner, wanting a bit more than his ration found a cow and started to milk it. He was
caught by the farmer who threatened him with a shotgun. The man was very frightened
and thought he was going to die. The upshot of it was the farmer was interviewed by
the police, and I suppose given a warning. He was said to be quite angry that he should
have been taken to task, just for threatening a P.O.W.!

鈥淭he impression I got was that the prisoners were generally quite fond of children;
they spent time with us when they could and were kind to us. The grown-ups must
have noticed this and told us not to be afraid of them. I never remember anything going
wrong.

鈥淎nother thing which sticks in my mind is the hop-picking season. A lot of hops were
grown in that part of Surrey, and over the border in Hampshire. When the hops were
ready to be picked train loads of 鈥楬oppers鈥� would come down from London. They
came from London鈥檚 East End, I believe. Whole families of women and children; the
men presumably being in the services, and they stayed for weeks. Living in huts and
bringing a change to our country routine.鈥�

The other thing to impact on the young Peter then was the large number of Canadian
soldiers around where he lived. The main place for them was at Longmoor Camp, not
very far away and it was not only on Peter that they seemed to make an impact. So far
as the local population was concerned the Canuks鈥� 鈥榬obust鈥� approach to life was
another novelty the war had brought to their part of rural England.

__________________________

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.