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Wartime Memories Margaret Wigglesworth, born 9th June 1932 .

Monday 4th September 1939 was one long whirl of activity. Most of the day was spent shopping in Leeds with my mother and grandmother and young sister; shopping for blackout material for the obligatory masking of all lights, and shopping for winter clothes in anticipation of coming shortages, rising prices and possible rationing. Back home by 5.00 p.m. we were greeted with the news that we had two hours in which to pack ready for the sixty mile drive to Dentdale in my father's very small office car. My parents were C.Os., Conscientious Objectors, a fact that was inevitably to colour my whole experience of and attitude to the war, and through the paper Peace News they had made contact with a sympathetic farming family. I probably slept for most of the journey but I retain vivid memories of glowing rabbits' eyes reflected in the car's headlights as we drove along increasingly narrow roads. Finally reaching our destination, we were greeted by the farmer's daughter Elizabeth. She was kindness itself and quickly had my sister and me settled deep in a vast feather bed.

Next morning my father left very early for the drive back to Leeds and for the next nine days the rest of us lived at the farm, a completely new and utterly remote world on the flanks of Whernside, full of excitement for us children. Meanwhile my mother was busy organising what was to be our home for the next fourteen months. Our farmer's brother, also a farmer, had an empty cottage which we were able to rent for the princely sum of one shilling [5p] a week. The cottage had two bedrooms above a living room with kitchen range; there was a small kitchen which had clearly been added at some stage, and a couple of small rooms off, one used as a pantry and the other as a coal store. Coal was delivered by horse and cart, a ton at a time as I remember. The sole mod. con. was a stone sink with an outlet. There were two water butts but most of our water had to be carried in buckets from the stream a few yards away, lighting was from candles and oil lamps while a stone-flagged path led through the small garden to the privy. All cooking was done on the range, there was a hook from which a kettle could be suspended over the open fire, to the left was the oven while hot water was heated in the tank to the right. A ladling can was used for filling and emptying. All this must have been very hard work for my mother but for the most part I think my sister and I just accepted it..

School in Dent village was rather less than a mile away and usually we walked but if we were lucky we would get a lift on the milk lorry, perching on one of the churns that awaited collection at the end of every farm lane. Coming home we might also be lucky and get a lift in the local taxi as it drove the three miles to Dent Station to collect a passenger. School itself came as a great shock. Back home I was already in the 'big' school (my seventh birthday was in June 1939) where I had been learning exciting things like joined up writing - with ink, and long division sums. At Dent there were two class rooms, one for infants and the other for the rest, and I found myself put with the infants and being asked if I could recite the alphabet! A visit from my mother soon had me moved up a class or two but even so, I don't think I made very much progress during my time there although I do remember learning the catechism from the vicar who made his appearance every week. It was only a small school but looking back I wonder how Miss Alexander, whom I adored, managed to teach the whole range from seven or eight year olds to strapping lads nearing fourteen whose sole desire was to leave as soon as possible. Many came from remote farms and absences were frequent, whether from snow in the winter or helping with the hay, etc. in the summer. Resources too were very limited. We used slates for most lessons and I suspect that these were not so much a result of wartime shortages as that the school had never progressed beyond them.

Remote as we were, however, we could not entirely escape the war and I, as a 'foreigner' suffered more than one painful experience. The first was when we turned up at school without a gas mask but much worse was when we, or at least my mother, were accused of being German spies. Before the war, in keeping with their pacifist beliefs and efforts at fostering international friendship, not only had my mother attended German evening classes but we had also had young German students to stay with us. Consequently I had learnt to count in German and, no doubt showing off, I had foolishly recited 'ein, zwei, drei,' etc. at school. That is all it took for some quite vicious rumours to spread and for a time we were the subject of much taunting (and my mother even had a visit from the police). The war crept a little closer when there was a distant air raid one night and we heard bombs dropping. I spent the rest of that night clinging to my mother in her bed. It came even closer in August 1940. It was a beautiful summer's day and we were all out helping with the hay-making when a motorbike came up the lane and the cyclist appeared with the dreaded yellow envelope containing a telegram. At that time, telegrams meant only one thing and sure enough it bore bad news. My grandmother had been killed in an air-raid and my grandfather was seriously ill in hospital, having lost his right arm. Their house had received a direct hit and they had been unable to reach the Anderson shelter in the garden in time. They lived in Bridlington and, ironically, they had wanted my sister and me to go to them when war broke out, to a supposedly quiet seaside town where we would be quite safe. In fact, Bridlington probably received more damage and casualties, relatively, than Leeds did. This was because it was in a direct line for German planes flying across the North Sea, their target the many airfields situated in east Yorkshire.

Although my father had taken us to Dentdale in his office car he never used it to visit us but would occasionally manage a weekend off and either come by train, when we would excitedly set off to meet him along the road from the distant station, or he would even cycle from Leeds. It must have been the second Christmas that we all went home for a few weeks. The trains were always packed with service men and I spent at least one journey perched on a soldier's knee while on another occasion the only space was in the Guards van.

November 1941 saw another major change when we moved from Dent to the village of Goathland in north Yorkshire. A group of Friends (Quakers) in Hull had set up a small boarding school, initially for their own children, and we were to be there for the next eighteen months. The school was run on very progressive and democratic lines with the children in three groups, Reds, Blues and Greens, starting at three and up to eleven. We had very few set lessons, for the most part working through work schemes at our own pace and now at last I was able to make some real progress. We were still with our mother as she had joined the staff, mainly to do housework, though she also gave piano lessons. We all had to do our share of the work. Polishing the schoolroom floor was always great fun as we had dusters tied to our feet, or were they mop heads? and slid up and down the room. Sheltered as we were from anything to do with the war I don't ever recall hearing of progress or otherwise though I do remember overhearing some heated discussions among the staff about Churchill. However, we did make our small contribution by knitting thick socks (I think) for seamen and there was one exciting night when we went on a midnight hike over the moors in order to watch the sunrise over Whitby and at some point we passed some members of the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard on watch and were duly challenged!

We finally returned to Leeds at the end of July 1943. I was now eleven and had earlier won a West Riding Junior Scholarship so I was to start at Lawnswood High School in September. The war was still far from over but Leeds had been little affected and I soon adjusted to the very different life I was now enjoying. Blackout, rationing and other wartime restrictions were still in force of course and we would have the occasional air-raid warnings but I don't think anything ever came of them. Whenever there are commemorative programmes of VE Day, May 1945, we are invariably shown jubilant crowd scenes in London and elsewhere and celebratory street parties. In keeping with my parents' pacifist beliefs, however, we took no part in any such celebrations. There was profound thanksgiving that the fighting was over but there was to be no cheering or triumphalism, just sadness for the carnage and suffering and the dreadful conditions that still existed in much of Europe. For me, however, VJ night was a little different. I was at my first Girl Guide Camp and in an adjoining field was a Scout Troop and so that night we had a joint campfire. Even so, it was the fact that we were fraternising (to use the jargon of the time) with boys which was the attraction and although we were glad that the war was finally over I am sure we knew nothing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki..

The war may have been over but there was a postscript. There was a Prisoner of War Camp close by and when the government gave permission for English families to receive POWs in their homes, under strict conditions, we immediately took advantage. Over the next few months, or was it years?, a number of prisoners visited, mostly ordinary young men, often very shy at first, and there were many Sunday afternoons when a small group would assemble in our 'Front Room' for a musical get-together. Typically, my father defied the rules and he would take one young prisoner, Heinz, walking over Ilkley Moor, first having lent him some of his own old clothes. Several of these men kept in touch for a number of years once they were repatriated and we continued to help as best we could by sending parcels of clothes for them and their families.

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