蜜芽传媒

I was six years old at the outbreak of the War. My father was a police constable, and therefore in a reserved occupation, so we did not suffer the trauma of him leaving for the war. However, I had an uncle who served with the Royal Artillery right through the conflict.

We lived in a little village called Broughton and the Flintshire /Cheshire border near Chester. Not quite a frontline situation like the big cities, but very near to a Metro-Vic factory which was building Wellington bombers, which would have been a prime target if the Germans could have found it!

One of my earliest memories is of my father coming in chuckling to tell us about a farmer who had reported some unexploded bombs dropped into his fields by a stray daytime raider. However, he said 鈥淣ot to worry, I have put a barn door over each of the craters鈥�. Not being in a critical place, it was some time before the bomb disposal people get round to trying to deal with them. By which time the bombs had vanished. The land was part of the area recovered from the Dee estuary when the stretch from Chester to Queensferry had been canalised. Parts of it consisted of a layer or good earth over what was basically quicksand, and the bombs had sunk beyond reach.

At that time, Broughton aerodrome had a small fighter training unit (I think it was two Hurricanes and one Spitfire); when another day raider came over, the instructors had their aircraft armed, took off and shot down the bomber. However, instead of being greeted as heroes, they were severely reprimanded for risking themselves and their aircraft in dealing with what was regarded as merely a nuisance raider!
It might have been from that incident, nut about that time a German bomber was brought down, and the bodies taken to a small mortuary near Broughton church. Together with a group of small boys, we managed to find a window, through which we could see the line of coffins. I think we were a bit disappointed not to see a row of bloody and mangled corpses! Small boys were pretty horrible even in those days!
I mentioned that the factory would have been a prime target if found, well one night the German equivalent of a pathfinder unit did find the site and dropped several incendiary bombs. Fortunately, the ARP on site got the fires out very quickly, so by the time the main bomber group arrived, there was nothing to see, The planes circled the area for some time, but eventually gave up and went and dropped their bombs on the poor people in Liverpool. I think that was the nearest the factory came to suffering a concerted attack.

I think at this point it might be of interest to some young people to describe our living conditions at that time. We thought that they were quite normal, but they may seem very primitive to modern children.

Our house was next but one to the end of quite a long terrace. Two rooms downstairs plus a 鈥渓arder鈥� where food etc was stored. Three bedrooms upstairs, but no bathroom; we used a tin bath in the kitchen. The only toilet was an earth closet out in the yard. The buckets were emptied once a fortnight, and the smell as the whole terrace was 鈥渄one鈥� was indescribable! There was also a wash-house in the yard with a built in boiler (coal fired). There was an access lane along the back of the houses, with quite long gardens beyond. There were pig sties at the bottom of the garden, but I do not think that any were still in use. They were useful for storing garden tools etc. In those days, there was no need to lock such things away! My father get hens on part of his land, and grew vegetables on the rest.

The village school was not much better. I had only three classrooms. The 4 and 5 year olds were in one; next was a very large room which doubled as the school hall and had two teachers one for 6and 7s and one for 8 and 9s

. The older children were in the third room and were taught by the head master in preparation for the dreaded 鈥淪cholarship鈥�, which is what the 11+ was called at that time. Not surprisingly, the results were not very impressive!

There were water closets for toilets, but they were across the school yard. Half of the boys鈥� area was unroofed, and it was not a good idea to stand too near to the wall in the playground as occasionally some little darling managed to build up enough pressure to clear the wall!

The winter of 1940-41 was very severe and our village was more or less cut off for about two weeks. During that time, no meat was delivered (it used to come in a butchers van once a week). My father had been brought up in the country, so took the lack of meat as a challenge and set off with his 12 bore to fill the pot. We probably ate better during this time than under normal circumstances as there were plenty of rabbits and pigeons around. One day he had wandered into the grounds of Lord Gladstone and had actually shot a pheasant when he saw the gamekeeper in the distance. Quickly hiding the gun and game in the hedge, he walked on to meet the keeper. The keeper said 鈥淚 know there are poachers about, I heard a shot just a few minutes ago. Did you see anybody?鈥�. My father quite truthfully replied 鈥淚 heard the shot too, but saw nobody until I met you鈥�. 鈥淚 will catch him one day鈥� said the keeper. 鈥淚 will carry on this way while you check back the way you came鈥�. My father always thought that the keeper suspected nothing, but I am not so sure. Keepers knew what conditions were like, and probably thought that the odd pheasant was a small price to pay to keep on the right side of the local constabulary!

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.