大象传媒

I was married in October 1939; as we look back now, on the "eve of war". When the war broke out, you had to be 22 years old to be conscripted to fight, but my best man signed up anyway; the feeling was that the war wouldn't last very long. Little did we know that we would see six years fighting.

My Tom was a farmer - this was a "reserved trade", and Tom didn't have to go to war right away; in any case, Tom thought his brother would "sort it all out"! Tom was eventually called in, in 1941, and travelled to Ireland, Italy, North Africa, all the way to Vesuvius. It could be said that he saw a lot of the world, but not in a good way.

My routine at home became settled; baby to bed, then write a letter. I wrote every night without fail, as I thought it would be nice to have a letter from home. Although in his 4 years of service Tom only came home once, he did mamage to send things back; biscuits, or boxes of nuts. Once, he sent a dried banana; at first, we didn't want to touch it as it looked for all the world like something a dog would leave on the pavement! Eventually, we plucked up courage to taste it, and found it to be nice and sweet.

If you had a back yard or garden, you would grow your own produce to help make ends meet - and we grew potatoes, with all the girls (including mother!) digging and toiling. Things like tomatoes were rare, as these normally would have come in from Jersey and of course Jersey was occupied.

Other memories include Swanny's horse and cart, and the long tins of bully beef with slices being cut off freshly for you. We had no freezers, so we had to go to the butchers every day. Mind you, although we were rationed we were all healthy as the rations gave you a balanced diet, unlike today's convenience foods. We would fill up on fruit and bread - sometimes with Carnation milk. The "Black Market" was alive and well too, with opportunities to but those little extras.

Though times were hard, we carried on because you simply had to. There was laughter as well as tears, but the main thing is that war brought the community together; everyone helped everyone else. What a shame we can't bring back some of this spirit today.

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