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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by a volunteer from ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Berkshire on behalf of Muriel Gregory and has been added to the site with her permission. Muriel Gregory fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

My parents, Fred and Vi Dance, with my two brothers, were on holiday on the Isle of Wight for the week before war was declared. So we had a week in war and a week in peace in an empty hotel as all the other guests went home. I was told all this, as I was one year old at the time.

My father farmed at Swallofield in Berkshire with his two brothers and sister. My grandma refused to have evacuees in the house so my parents moved into the farmhouse together with my Auntie and Uncle so there were 2 eighty year olds, 4 adults and 8 children sharing 4 bedrooms, my brothers and I slept in a bed (two the right way, I was upside down).

On 1st January 1943 we moved to Stratfield Saye to take over a farm whose tenant wasn’t producing enough and it was taken away from her by the WARAG.

We had over the year 3 land army girls. The first was a ‘lady’s companion’. Her lady was the wife of a Shipping company Director who lived in the village. So we received goodies from abroad in exchange for fresh rabbits, chicken and turkeys which father bred.

The second and third were from Southampton, one had been a doctor’s receptionist and brought chicken pox with her so we all ended up being nursed by my mother.

My next memory is of standing with my parents watching planes pulling gliders flying overhead towards France. I think they had come from Greenham Common. The sky was full of planes and the noise was tremendous.

At the end of the war we had Italian Prisoners of war from Mortimer working on the farm cutting hedges and clearing out ditches. They had an old copper pot up on bricks and put into the pot every thing they caught and found in the hedgerow. My younger brother ate with them and still says it was the tastiest food he has ever had.

VE day celebration was held on the village rec (playing field). I was dressed as Brittania as were 5 other girls!! During the war our landlord, the Duke of Wellington (George) was killed at Salerno Landing with the Marine Commandos.

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