大象传媒

I lived on a small holding at Dunley in Worcestershire; with my mother, father, brother and sister and my grandparents, we all lived in two old houses joined together.

We were sitting in the house, one Sunday after lunch, and we heard the sound of a German plane. It came over very low and tried to bomb the power station at Stourport. The ack-ack guns opened up on it and it ended up dropping its bombs at Hartlebury.

It was a hard life. All our water, for ourselves as well as for the animals, came from a well a quarter of a mile away down the hill, and it had to be carried up by hand. We had to walk from the farm to Stourport, about 3-陆 to 4 miles away, for all our supplies, even including big bundles of wood, which had to be carried home.

We kept pigs and poultry, and my brother and I had the job of going down to the gate at the end of the drive, to keep watch for the police, while a pig was slaughtered for the black market. One time we noticed there was a bike under the hedge, so we waited to see whose it was. Eventually this chap came down the drive with a big piece of pork under his arm. He got on the bike and rode off, as he did so putting on his helmet. It was the policeman, the local Bobby!

We grew a lot of fruit. Mother and Nan used to get up early in the morning and do all the housework and then go out to do all the fruit picking. We had eight acres of land, which, in summer had to be cut with a scythe and raked and turned by hand to make hay, which was made into a big rick.

Just at the end of the war I started school, at Arley Kings School on the switchback road. We had to walk the 4-陆 miles each way, so in winter we had to change clothes and shoes at a friend鈥檚 house, who lived near the school. We had to be at school for 9 o鈥檆lock, and we left school at 4pm to walk home.

Mum used to cut up rags to make rag carpets. I remember one time my uncle came and my mother had made us a stew. My uncle was chewing on this thing in the stew, chewing and chewing, and eventually he pulled out this long piece of rag! We all laughed at that.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Joe Taylor for the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Derek Ward and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

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