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Wartime memories of living in Maulden, Bedfordshire Part Two

Part two of an oral history interview with Mrs. Mary Harris conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum

“During the war we had these ‘Stay at ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½â€™ holidays just for one week through the summer holidays when the children were off school. It was more like they had a day when they had this show and they had like a little Gymkhana in the middle of the Rec. and there’d be various stalls and there’d be races for the younger children. That was all on one day and then during the week they’d have Whist Drives on one night and a Beetle Drive, that was very popular in those days and then they’d finish up with a dance on the Saturday night. It was a week long event. I think they used to have darts competitions as well, one night in the pubs in the older people who were interested in beer and that sort of thing.

In 1941 I think it was there was a competition for ‘Make and Do’ and I thought I’ll make something for it. I’d got quite a few cigarette cards and we started exchanging. Anybody who’d got one of these I’d say, ‘Well have you got any of these cigarette cards you want to make your series up.’ That’s how I really started and anybody who was smoking Kensitas, straight away I used to say, ‘Are you collecting the flags that are in them?’ They’d probably say, ‘No.’ I’d say, ‘Oh, can I have it?’ That’s how I did it, I didn’t smoke. And no one that was a relation to me could afford Kensitas, they were all on Willie Woodbines or Players or what have you, the cheaper brands. I don’t know it was just from different people that you came across if they were smoking Kensitas you used to ask them you see. And anybody else I would say, ‘If you know of anybody who smokes Kensitas and they are not collecting them tell them to save them for me because I’m collecting them for a purpose.’ But I quite liked these, they fascinated me and that’s why I went for the little emblems.

That is exactly the size. All I did was lay them on there (onto a piece of black silk) and sort of made a pattern to start with to see how many I’d got to make two cushion covers. Because I wanted to do something with them rather than just keep them in a pack, you didn’t see the beauty of them in a pack. So I thought well, you know. Because then my grandma, because these were black and she said about this black silk I thought, oh, that’s a good idea because I was always wanting to make something. If you look, the blue piping, it’s just hooked around with black, I didn’t machine it, it is all done by hand. I bought the piping cord from Miss Trott in Ampthill. I couldn’t get these what I call perfect in my opinion. Some lay flatter than others and I think that’s where the cord when I worked on it twisted round and I should have … they are not perfect but probably on a cushion you wouldn’t notice it anyway. Miss Trott used to have a lovely little shop there all wool and silks and cottons, that’s all she used to sell. But in those days people used to when you could get the wool, you’d get a pattern and you’d go to Miss Trott, show it to her and tell her what colour you wanted. She’d say, ‘You need so many ounces and I’ll put it by for you, put your name on it.’ And you used to go and buy an ounce at a time when you could afford it. That’s how we used to knit our jumpers and things

It was on a Saturday when we had the Show and followed by a dance the next week because it was too hectic to have it on the Saturday when we had the Show so we used to have the big dance on the following Saturday. Oh, I was thrilled to bits to win the first prize because I couldn’t imagine it was worth a First really. Some ladies made skirts and tops. There wasn’t that amount really that people made. Some did put embroidery, they’d got patterns by them you see, the pattern were there on the material, they’d sort of just do the flowers. Of course they used to do a lot of table cloths, years ago. There were quite a lot of those and knitted things as well, there were quite a few knitted things. I suppose it was just something that was unusual and that sort of took the judges eye.

We had got electricity, my grandma had got electricity but a lot of people used to have candles or these oil lamps. I can remember my grandmother having an oil lamp when I first went there but then they had electricity, had it all done and that. They used to have a well in the garden for water but eventually water got laid on and we had a tap. It didn’t happen just like that! It’s very funny because a boy that lived near me, there were about three of them then and we used to have to fetch a bucket of water from the pump in The Knoll and bring it round because they thought the drinking water from that was much better than the tap water!

I can remember when the first incendiary bombs dropped. There was a little gang of us because we formed a Club for the teenagers at the Village Hall. And we were coming home from that on the Friday night, we held it on a Friday night, and we saw the sky all light up and all these bombs were dropping all around us and being young, oh, what’s going on? You never realised how close they were and they dropped up Clophill Road in the field near the farm. But that was the nearest that I ever knew of bombs. Oh, and down Reddings Wood, they had some dropped down there, but they were the closest to us in Maulden.

Of course they took all the iron railings down, that was for making tanks and guns, and things like that. But there was the Ordnance Factory further on. You know the bridge before you get to Cowbridge, Elstow, the bridge there, well on the right hand side that was the Ordnance Factory, there. They are thinking of building houses there now aren’t they? There were people from Maulden working there. You could only go there when you got older, but I was already at the Bovril. They were earning good money down there but I didn’t particularly want to do the work, I stayed where I was I was quite happy there.

I joined the First Aid because really I wanted to be a Nurse but I never got there. They used to have a First Aid point down in Maulden near the School, the Billiard Room. It used to be part of where we used to have our Club. They’d got a billiard table down there but us being young we weren’t allowed to use it but we got the Hall and that was part of it. We used to have bunk beds in there and do a shift once a week or perhaps once a fortnight, depends how it worked around. There’d be about four of you on duty. I had to do First Aid lessons and I passed out on that. I kept that up for quite a while because it was always interesting.

Well, they’d got the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard, everybody had got the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard hadn’t they, a Unit of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard. They used to march, the used to Parade once a month on a Sunday morning, we didn’t see them. Sometimes we used to have exercises were the First Aiders and the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard used to work together. It would be a demonstration of perhaps a bomb had been dropped and they were having to deal with that. We had casualties laying there with tags on them and we had to try and work out from the information on the tag what was wrong with them. It was just a test of what you would do. The First Aider would come along and say, ‘How would you deal with this person?’ Because there was nothing for us to see, we could only go on what the information was on that tag. That was quite interesting. Afterwards he would tell you how you had done on the exercise, if you had worked it out correctly. They’d say perhaps, you’d got a fractured leg for instance and you’d got a bone protruding through or you’d got fractured ribs and it had penetrated one of the lungs, that sort of thing. Then he would want to know what type of fracture it was and that sort of thing. They were mostly people we knew in the village you see. Yes, we used to have some fun too, when we were on duty because we were lucky enough that nothing happened. We never had to use any knowledge. I wondered how I would react if it happened! You don’t know do you, I’d probably wouldn’t be able to do anything. But you do react when it’s facing you, well you’ve either got to deal with it or run from it, you’ve got two choices really.

I think they were quite active in the village really. Because of course the Market Gardeners seemed to be doing very well then, it was a very wealthy village really. I mean they reckoned the soil in Maulden, especially over the Moor, is very, very good soil. But now it’s all finished, people are not growing stuff any more, are they? Oh, they used to grow no end of food and it used to be lovely.

We used to organise our own dances. We used to have teenagers, up to about 18 or 19 something like that, we just used to assemble at the Hall and do our own thing. Sometimes we’d organise an evening where we’d got the gramophone and we’d and dance amongst yourselves, something like that. Perhaps one person would be in charge, an older person, but it was just sort of to get together and do something. Some sort of entertainment. I mean well, the Church Lads Brigade that was more or less finished then because the fella’s that were running that had to go in the Forces you see so a lot of things that had started up, you try to keep going.

As the war went on and we got a bit of money by us we used to go to hear the big bands in Luton sometimes on a Sunday night, but that wasn’t very often because we couldn’t afford to go. You’d got your bus fare to pay. Now and again we used to go to Luton to the Alma, that was a picture place. There were quite a few picture places in Luton but the Alma was the one that had the big bands playing periodically on a Sunday night, there was no film, they used to play the band, it used to be lovely. But that was not very often, that was a highlight perhaps of six months. There’d be quite a few of us went from Maulden on the bus, all come back together. But the rest of the time you just had to make your own fun.

Oh, yes we used to cycle to Bedford to dances when the Yanks were in Bedford. Actually we used to cycle to the Kempston Barracks my friend and I. I made friends with a girl from Houghton Conquest when I was at the Bovril, she loved dancing and we used to go to the Kempston Barracks when there was a certain fellow used to play, now what is his name, Freddy Maidwell. He’d got a lovely band, there was only about three of them in the band but they’d come from Ampthill and you always used to bike. I mean there was no other way of getting there so you used to cycle there. We used to cycle to Silsoe to dances on a Saturday night when there was one. We cycled to Meppershall, we cycled to Shefford because there was a lot of soldiers at Chicksands so there was always plenty of partners and they liked to have somebody to dance with as well. But we never thought anything about cycling home at one or two o’clock in the morning, never thought about it! I can always remember my grandma, I went with my friend from Maulden to this Sergeant and Officer’s dance at Shefford and of course it was quite something to get invited to one of those. I always remember and it was on until one o’clock in the morning and I said to my grandma, ‘Don’t worry will you because I might be a bit late tonight because it goes on after twelve o’clock.’ She said, ‘That’s alright as long as you take care of yourself.’ That was always her worry. Anyhow when we got to Clophill I said to my friend, ‘Oh, my bike, somethings gone wrong, I’ve got a puncture!’ But we’d got to keep riding because it’d gone one o’clock when we left the dance.’ So it must have been half past one and it was terrible. So we started walking from Clophill to Maulden. I remember I heard the clock go two o’clock and I crept round to my grandma’s back door, because the door was always open, the door was never locked and she put the light on. I said, ‘Don’t put the light on gran, I’m a bit late but I’m alright.’ I thought if she sees what the time is she’ll have a fit! That was about half past two. I crept upstairs and got into bed, I was so grateful that I was home but I thought being about at that time in the morning, dreadful. Not today they are out at all hours aren’t they?

On one occasion I was coming home on my own. I’d left my friend at Houghton turn and we’d been to, this was the first time that I went to dance at Kempston, and she said, ‘Oh, why don’t you come home and stay with me?’ I said, ‘No, I won’t. My sister she leaves the cinema quite late and she and her boyfriend are going to wait for me at the top of the hill. But I shall have to leave early, quarter past eleven.’ She said, ‘Oh, alright.’ Well we were enjoying ourselves so much it was quarter to twelve and I said, ‘Oh, Doreen look at the time, we’d better go.’ She said, ‘Oh, they’ll be finishing in a few minutes.’ So that meant half an hour late and I left her at the turn and I was frightened to death, I’d got a dynamo on my bike so when you got off there was no light. I was walking up the hill all on my own, half past twelve at night up Hazelwood Lane hill, as you come from Bedford up into Ampthill, up that hill, I was walking up that there. I thought oh, my God, there’s voices coming and they were Irishmen. There were a lot of Irishmen down Elstow, the Depot near there working. Oh, I thought oh my God they are on the other side of the road, this path went down and then you come across so far down on the left hand side walking down and then you crossed over to other path. And I thought, oh, my God, they’ll be crossing, just at that point, so I stood in the hedge and held my breath because I thought if they see me I don’t know what will happen. They went down that little bit farther and crossed over, oh I was so relieved I got on my bike and I peddled up the hill I never bothered about walking up it, I peddled up it. I got away as quick as I could and when I got into Ampthill there was always a Policeman standing in one of the doorways and you always felt safe when you got there. And I came home right through to Maulden and I thought I won’t ever do that again, I’ll either stop at my friends or I won’t go. I thought that was the only scary part I ever had really when I was out on my own, but I was scared I must admit. But it was a bit scary but that was the only one.�

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