大象传媒

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This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Phil Sealey of the Somerset County Museum Team on behalf of Margaret [Peggy] Walker and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions

鈥淲hen the Second World War began in September 1939, I was still a schoolgirl, living in the Mendip village of Doulting. An early event was a visit from the Air Raid Precautions wardens. An older cousin had volunteered to become a warden whilst awaiting call up, and I remember him coming to our house with a colleague to equip us all with gas masks, and to show us how to use them. You carried your mask with you everywhere: to school, shopping and just to visit a neighbour. It was kept in a pale brown, square cardboard box and was worn around your neck on a piece of string or diagonally across your body over one shoulder. It was cumbersome but a wise precaution as it was thought Hitler intended gas attacks. If you wished, you could buy a leatherette case for the mask, which was marginally better. I remember the weight bumping against my body as I ran for the bus in the mornings.
I can鈥檛 recall the date on which evacuees began to arrive but we had a succession of them over time, mostly boys because there were two young brothers of five and three years old in our family. My eldest brother was working away from home. My father had died in 1937 so I was my mother鈥檚 main support. It was felt by the authorities that placing boys with us would help the displaced children to settle more quickly. The ones who arrived in our village came from East London. They were all nice children but totally lost in the countryside. One six-year-old called Derek longed for the noise of the city and went back to London despite the bombs.
Dennis, who was thirteen, decided to try an experiment with a candle, which could have burnt the house down. There was a rod fixed under the mantelshelf on which clothes could dry or air above the open fire. One evening after a wet laundry day, my mother had draped towels on the rod. This had always been a safe system, but I saw Dennis standing staring thoughtfully at the towels with a lit candle in his hands, ready to go to bed - no electric lights in country cottages at that time. Then, very deliberately, he passed the candle under the towels. The whole lot went up in flames, and we all rushed about with bowls of water. Paintwork was scorched and blistered as well as the destruction of three towels. He left soon afterwards.
My aunt had a family of three billeted on her, two boys and their sister. They arrived grubby and tired, so she prepared a bath for them, to their horror. They admitted they had a bathroom at home, but the bath was used to store coal. They couldn鈥檛 be persuaded into the water.
Another evacuation scheme was for mothers in their seventh or eighth month of pregnancy. They were placed with local families in the country where their babies could be born in peace, away from the bombing. We changed over to this scheme after the towel incident for the remainder of the war. East Cranmore Hall was requisitioned as a maternity hospital, and after the births most of the women brought their babies to see us. A few kept in touch for a long time, and one 鈥� Mrs Tinsley from Woolwich - came back for a summer holiday for many years. She always went home with pots of homemade jam.
The air raid siren which heralded enemy aircraft approaching was a piercing, rising and falling wailing lament. One weekend I slept at an aunt鈥檚 house, which was just across the road from the building on which, the siren was fixed. At breakfast next morning, a disbelieving aunt and uncle found I had slept through the air raid, not even hearing the All Clear which was a long, loud, piercing single note, which fell away down the scales like a dying banshee.
We all had to do air raid drill in which we huddled under the big kitchen table in case of bombing, as there was a fear of falling masonry. Beds were brought downstairs and all were fitted into one room, which was great fun for my little brothers. The piano stood in the same room and I used to play nursery rhymes on it after they were in bed. I taught them the words and they asked who was looking after the apple tree on St Paul鈥檚 steeple, because so many people were evacuated. They imagined that because their village was full, London was empty!
Food was rationed and we all had our ration books, full of coupons to be cancelled or cut out when we shopped. Meat, bacon, cheese, butter, margarine, sugar, tea, eggs and cooking fat were rationed in very small portions per person. Tinned goods were on the points system and the pink pages further back in the ration book were cut out for this. Oranges were almost non-existent, but if they appeared, it was one per ration book. Bananas disappeared entirely, unless you happened to know someone in the merchant navy who might bring one occasionally. I recall a plea broadcast by a doctor in a Bristol hospital, on behalf of a seriously ill boy who craved a banana. The Oxford accent of the announcer requested that you send a banana urgently if you had one. The child got his fruit.
Sweets and chocolate were rationed and my mother and I used our rations for the children. We retained one small bar, which we enjoyed with a cup of Camp coffee on Sunday evenings. It was shared out square by square as we listened to the weekly serial play. I remember Fry鈥檚 chocolate sandwich bars were often the only ones available.
Identity cards were issued which must always be carried. I remember my number still 鈥� WPVE/1 32/3.
Our vicar disappeared, going off to be an army padre. He ended up in the Far East and was a POW in a Japanese camp for many years. We had a series of locums.
There were very few cars on the road as petrol was rationed. Only essential workers could get extra petrol, e.g. doctors, nurses, police and emergency workers. Headlights gave little light because of the blackout. A hood was fitted over the top of the lamp to throw the light down onto the road where hopefully an enemy plane couldn鈥檛 see it. Homes also had the blackout imposed and a chink of light brought a tap on the door from the local ARP wardens.
One night as I walked the three miles home in the dark after going to the cinema, a car pulled up and an angry policeman commanded me to get in. I was given a lecture on the dangers to young women walking about in the blackout, and told never to do it again. He took me home, making me feel like a naughty child.
The radio was the main source of information and of entertainment: Churchill鈥檚 speeches to the nation; Tommy Handley in ITMA (It鈥檚 That Man Again) complete with Mrs Mop saying, 鈥淐an I do you now sir?鈥� and 鈥淚t鈥檚 being so cheerful as keeps me going鈥� from a lugubrious Mona Lot. Saturday Night Music Hall with its many comedy turns was also popular. One of these was Mabel Constandourous who also broadcast to housewives in the mornings, giving household tips to make commodities go further and particularly with recipes to make rations more tasty.
In our house, my mother divided the rations equally each week. For example, each individual ration of sugar was put into a glass screw topped jar with a name on it. If we sweetened our drinks or stewed fruit too liberally, the jar would be empty before the end of the week, but if we were careful, there might be a little to add to the large jar my mother kept as a communal store. From this carefully hoarded source, she continued to make jam and some cakes throughout the war, though ingenuity was needed to sweeten cakes and puddings. This was done with rosehip syrup, concentrated apple juice, carrots and parsnips amongst other things. As my mother had given up sugar in her tea during the first World War, that helped the cooking hoard considerably.
Making cakes and puddings was also helped by the fact that we kept hens. When eggs were rationed, we had built up the flock to fifty, but immediately this became difficult as meal and corn were rationed. To overcome this, we supplied a number of neighbours with their egg rations and we were allowed a quota of food for the hens on each ration book. Even so, the meal had to be supplemented with boiled potato peelings, which were mashed up when cooked and mixed into the hen food. Boiled potatoes smell fine - but not boiled peelings. These have a most revolting smell and this chore was often mine! We had a contract to supply eggs to each ration book registered with us, come what may, so sometimes when the hens didn鈥檛 lay well, the family had to go without. To counteract this, my mother preserved eggs in isinglass in the productive season, so that at least we always had eggs for cooking. Sometimes I helped to place the eggs in concentric layers, pointed end down, before the preserving liquid was gently poured into the earthenware crock. I hate dried egg powder but sometimes we had to utilize it, obtainable with our ration books, on points I think.
The 大象传媒 Symphony Orchestra under the conductor Adrian Boult was evacuated to Bristol, then when that city was bombed, to the Corn Exchange at Bedford. There they stayed for the duration of the war. We loved music and tried not to miss a concert. The radio ran on an accumulator (a large, heavy battery which had to be recharged every week) and we always kept a spare one to make sure we were not caught out.
There were local whispers that the Domesday Book had been evacuated to Shepton Mallet prison for safekeeping and indeed this was so. Most of the prison was taken over by the military. Quite a few prisoners were hanged there, mostly black soldiers once the Americans arrived in the town and took over the prison. This caused a scandal after the war when investigations were made, but the results were hushed up.
Throughout the war, the town was full of soldiers, with many also in the surrounding countryside. Convoys on the roads were commonplace and as a bashful young cyclist, it was my horror to get caught up in the slow-moving army trucks, suffering whistles and catcalls. There were lots of ammunition dumps on wide country grass verges in isolated places and sometimes these had sentries guarding them. More whistles as you passed by!
The small market town of Shepton Mallet had regiment after regiment stationed there: the Green Howards, the Northumbrian Fusiliers, the Pioneer Corps and many others. After Dunkirk, the area was full of tired, utterly devastated men. Many were traumatized and drawn."

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