大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Northumberland on behalf of Mrs. Ella Thwaites (nee Richardson). Mrs. Thwaites fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions, and the story has been added to the site with her permission. Thanks to Brett Exton for his Internet website (www.camp198.fsnet.co.uk), which helped with identification of the Prisoner of War Camp near Plumpton. The story is written in the first person.

I was born in 1922 and had not long finished my schooling when the Second World War began. Home was a farm at Plumpton, Cumberland, about five miles from Penrith and thirteen miles from Carlisle. At the time, we had no electricity and most of the one hundred and twenty-five acres of the farm was laid to grass on which my Father, Daniel Richardson, grazed cattle although that soon changed. As an only child, throughout the war I worked on the farm, helping my parents. In many respects, my contribution to the war effort was much the same from those women who joined the Women鈥檚 Land Army but it was not necessary for me to join that organisation, which had a hostel at Lazenby, about four miles from our farm. By one of those strange co-incidences, not long ago a new neighbour moved to my village in Northumberland and it turns out that when she served with the Land Army, she was billeted at Lazenby and worked on a neighbour鈥檚 farm where I called each month to collect money for the Red Cross organisation. It鈥檚 a small world!

One of my earliest memories of the war was when we took in a young girl who had been evacuated from Tyneside. Probably, that was in 1939. My Mother, Jane, went to the Village Institute Hall and returned with Marion Bell, a seven year-old girl from the Benwell area of Newcastle upon Tyne. During her time with us, Marion attended the village school, unusually, perhaps, for a full day鈥檚 schooling, from 9 o鈥檆lock in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon, returning home for her lunch. In those days, to receive a full day鈥檚 schooling was unusual as, to handle the much larger number of children brought about by evacuation and to cater for the needs of evacuees, most schools away from major conurbations operated on two half day shifts. Marion stayed with us for two years before her Mother came to take her back to Newcastle. However, some years later, when she was married and had two children of her own, a boy and girl, she called on us once. That must have been in the early 1960s. The most memorable thing from that day was when her young boy saw my husband, Cyril, milking a cow by hand and declared: 鈥淲e get our milk in a bottle鈥�. After that we lost contact with Marion, which is a shame.

Boys from Newcastle鈥檚 Royal Grammar School were evacuated from Tyneside and billeted at Penrith. My Aunt had five stay with her. Those boys shared school facilities with the boys of Penrith Grammar School, so they were typical of those children who received only half a day鈥檚 schooling each day. During summer months, many were billeted with farmers, to help with hay making and harvesting. I remember two boys sent to us, David Towers, whose father was involved with the shipping industry, possibly he was associated with Lloyds of London, and the other boy was called Alec Hardy. We became good friends and stayed in touch for many years. Both died a few years ago.

Father joined the Home Guard. As our granary was used to store tinned food reserves for the area, he was soon appointed Food Officer. He underwent weekly training. As one of the best shots in his unit, as Corporal Daniel Richardson, Father did well in Home Guard shooting competitions. For her part, Mother joined the WVS (Women鈥檚 Voluntary Service), in which thousands of women helped in supplying emergency services through the country. She did things in a very quiet way.

Quite early in the war, Merry Thought Prisoner of War Camp (Camp 76) was built at Calthwaite, about a mile and a half from our farm at Plumpton. During the six months that it took to build the camp, two of the soldiers doing so were billeted with us. One came from Tyneside, the other from Merseyside. The first occupants of the camp were Italians, one of who, Carlo Agrimi, lived with us for two years. Carlo was a good worker. Occasionally, friends of his from the camp would visit the farm, the most notable of who was the camp tailor, Giuseppe Semminara, who we always knew as Joseph. Joseph made a wonderful Harris Tweed coat for my Father and several skirts for Mother and me. After the war, he returned to Sicily but, in 1949, Joseph came back to England, to start a new tailoring business at Carlisle. When he married a Carlisle girl he asked my parents to represent his parents at the wedding, which I think would have been in 1953. Joseph died four or five years ago. His venture was extremely successful and, if memory serves, as many as fifteen other Italians followed, first to work for or with Joseph before they branched out into other ventures.

When the Italians were moved out of the Prisoner of War camp German prisoners moved in. Again, we had one billeted with us, to work on the farm. Unfortunately, I cannot remember his name but he, too, was a very good worker. He kept in touch when he returned to Germany and I remember him sending us a copy of his wedding photograph.

Blackout regulations operated despite us living in a rural area. Car headlights were masked and we had thick black cloths at our windows. Of course, there weren鈥檛 many cars or other vehicles around in those days but petrol rationing limited their use such that people made great use of bicycles. Once a month, I cycled around the area calling at farms and houses collecting money for the Red Cross.

Livestock marts continued to operate as normal. In the early years of the war, two or three farming neighbours would get together and walk their cattle to the mart at Penrith. Usually, we would only take two or three cattle each. For most of the way, I cycled by the side, to keep the cattle on the route we wanted to take but I would return home as soon as they reached a roadway just outside Penrith. Sheep were taken to Lazenby in much the same way. Later on, animals for the mart were collected and taken there by lorry.

Early in the war, again probably in 1939, Father received instructions from the War Agricultural Committee, to plough out every field and convert to arable farming. We grew oats, barley, turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables. Fortunately, Father did not have to buy expensive new equipment he could ill afford as contractors arrived with planters and, later, pickers. We still needed additional help and women, perhaps from the Land Army, were employed at a very modest daily rate. It might have been two shillings a day, I cannot now be certain but, also, they took away with them a bag of potatoes.

Dances and concerts were held in the Village Hall, maybe once a month. The Hall itself was demolished many years ago, not to be replaced. It was actually made from two First World War Nissan huts that came from Gretna. Many of the events held raised money and clothing for the armed forces, for example Military Whist Drives, Police Balls, and Farmers Balls. Eight or nine people from the village served with the armed forces and we knitted mittens, scarves, and jumpers to send to them.

The Station Master鈥檚 wife, Mrs. Nelson, organised concert parties for which I played the piano but, maybe, I should have practiced more! There might have been one or two dozen performances at village halls, Women鈥檚 Institute venues and for anyone who asked for us within a twenty to thirty mile radius of home. We made our own costumes. I well remember dying dried flour sacks to use as skirts. It took ages to remove the 鈥淐arr鈥檚 Flour Mill鈥� name from the sacks.

One unusual event, which happened twice, was when lots of armoured tanks arrived and parked in our farmyard overnight. Father seemed to have advanced warning of these visits. Presumably, they were taking part in a training exercise. I have often wondered where their crews slept as there was very little sign of activity overnight, just the tanks parked there.

I met my husband-to-be, Cyril Thwaites, at a dance when I was about twenty years of age. He came from a farming family that farmed four or five miles from where we lived, and we courted for much of the war. We were married on 22 April 1948, and I still have furniture dockets (coupons) from when we set up home. A chair, for example, cost seven shillings and six pence, or thirty-seven and a half pence in new money! Returning to the war, in the event of animals being injured during air raids, Cyril鈥檚 Father was one of the few people in the area, perhaps the only one, authorised to shoot them, presumably with a view to having the carcases put into the food chain.

For us, food was plentiful, as we made our own butter, and milk, eggs and vegetables from the farm were plentiful. A travelling Butcher called every Wednesday, and a travelling Grocer called once a month. From him, Mother might have bought two stones of sugar at a time, today equivalent to almost thirteen kilograms, and ten stones of flour. Each week, she made ten loaves of white bread and five of brown. Everything was bought in bulk because there were no large shops nearby neither did we have the transport to collect large food orders from Penrith, the nearest town of any size. Of course, some things were not available during the war years. Some time later I remember the reaction of a young cousin of mine, Molly, to seeing a banana for the first time. She had no idea what a banana was!

We always kept two pigs and had a man visit the farm when it was time for them to be killed. Every part of the pigs was used, including their blood, to make black pudding, and their trotters and heads, to make delicious brawn. Of course, we had no such things as freezers or refrigerators in those days, so the bacon and meat joints had to be salted, to make sure they could be kept and that they would be edible.

I had had a very happy childhood with good, loving parents. Living where we did, I had little knowledge about working or living away from home or, in fact, about the war that was raging in other parts of the world. My wartime memories are of life that was not much changed from pre-war years but my parents and I worked hard on the farm and as such we contributed in our own small way to the country鈥檚 war effort.

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