ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝

This story has been submitted to the People’s War Website by Anne Wareing of the Lancashire ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝ Guard on behalf of John and Sarah Greenwoood and has been added to the site with their permission…

I was 11 when the war started and had just moved to Park Senior School Colne. I remember that some of the classes were changed. Our form should have had French, but instead this was changed to First Aid and instead of needlework we knitted socks for soldiers.
Also the shortage of paper affected us, I recall in our exercise books we had to rule an extra line at the top and bottom and we wrote inside the back cover when the book was full, in order to make it go that little bit further. We didn’t have any art lessons, we couldn’t waste paper drawing, I missed this, because I loved to draw.

We all had identity cards and gas masks and had to carry them with us wherever we went. Rationing affected everyone, I missed sweets and bananas and soap was in short supply. We all had to ‘dig for victory’ and we dug our garden over and grew vegetables and I remember selling tomatoes and with the money we would by more seeds to plant. On the subject of food, I recall one day my Auntie and I were getting some scones from the pantry and we dropped one in a tub of powdered soap, which was also rationed at the time, we brushed off the scone, because you didn’t throw any food away, I took a bite and said, ‘that’s bad’ and so my Auntie took a bite and she said, ‘that’s damn bad’ so we fed it to the dog.

I went into the mill when I was 14, the mill still had gas lamps; in fact not many of the houses around Trawden had electric light until 1947 or 48. Working in the mill was classed as essential work, during the war and I worked there until I was 21.

Being in the country we were fairly safe, we would sometimes see and hear the German bombers flying over, probably on there way to the coast and I think only the odd bomb was dropped in the area.

They had tank traps in Trawden and pill- boxes, also there were dummy pill- boxes in the church walls and coiled barbed wire around the fields. We used to have trams running in Trawden, but they ceased in 1928. During the war they took the tracks up and cut them into 8 to 10 foot lengths and put them into the ground in the village square like stakes, these would hopefully have stopped the German tanks, had we been invaded.

Before the ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝ Guard there was the Local Defence Volunteers the LDV or as we called them, the ‘Look, Duck and Vanish’ and the story goes one of them was on duty, heard a rustling in the bushes and said bravely, ‘Halt, who goes there?’ only to find it was a cow.

Quite a bit of black marketing went on in country areas and John my husband recalls when him and his Dad had gone to pick 3 crates of eggs up from this farm, on the way back they got stopped by the policeman. Who said to them. ‘This horse of yours is lame, you need to get it shod.’ He never asked them what was covered up in the back of the cart, if he had investigated, he would have found 30 dozen eggs in there from the farm. Just a couple of the many local stories from that time.

The following are seven verses of a poem entitled ‘Trawdin’ which I wrote in Lancashire dialect about the tram- lines in Trawden.

W’en trams came to Trawdin, it wer’ a gurt day,
An’ all t’kids gate time off, soa thi cud play.
Thi all ‘ed a ride, an’ ‘ed buns an’ tea,
An’ t’best o’ t’lot, it wer’ all fer free.

Nah, t’trams ran ter Trawdin i’ 1904,
An’ fowk ‘ed ne’r sin owt like it befooar.
Thi only ran t’Rock Hotel,
An’ ‘ere t’tram driver rang ‘iz bell.

Thi ran on the tracks till twenty eight,
I’ sunshine an’ snaw, boo-ath early an’ late.
Nah, t’lines wer’ kept till t’war wer’ on,
An’ sad ter say, thiv nah all gone’.

But thi played the’r part, lyin’ i’t Square,
Ready ter stop t’Jerry tanks getting there.
It might seem ser strange, fer t’y’ung ones ter see,
At this cud ‘ave ‘appened i’ forty-three.

W’en t’Trawdin “Dad’s Army” gathered each night,
If t’Germans came, thi wer’ ready ter fight,
Ther’s monny a tale, ‘at ez bin told,
Ov these brave lads, ‘at wer’ soa bold.

Thi ‘ed ter goa on t’moor at neet,
An’ even t’cahs gav’ them a freet,
But, thi did the’r best till t’war wer’ won,
An’ wi ‘ev ter thank ‘em, ivverone.

Nah, th’only records wi ev, ar on slide,
But, t’deeds o’ “Dad’s Army” are known far ‘an wide,
Bi’coss of the funniest T.V. show,
An’ all the actors cud bi sumone wi know.

Sarah Greenwood

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