Eileen Couch's Story -Part 2

Anyway, 1943 we had an epidemic of Scarlet Fever and Diphtheria, and the Hospital was full, all the wards were full. They closed all the dance halls, you couldn’t hold a dance, they closed everything. I don’t think they closed the cinema, but there were no dances. that went on for more of less the whole 43. I know the last dance before they cancelled it, was going to be one that I was going to run. So whoever was the Clerk of the Council had said, seeing that we’ve had to close it, and your dance has had to be cancelled. The first time it’s opened and the first dance that’s run, is yours. So I thanked him very much. I’d lost all the money that I’d spent out, and that was that. The epidemic lasted I should imagine about six to eight months. I mean, the dance that I’d had, would have been in the June, they finally got back to opening the Public Hall the following January, it was a long time. The first dance that came back was 1944, and the Rugby Club in those days, always used to have New Years Day. But that New Years Day it wasn’t the Rugby Club Dance it was mine. Anyway there was a heated argument said about why did I have it and all the rest of it. And it was sorted out that I was the last, so I was the first.
I used to run dances probably every two months. I would run a

I would run a dance in the Public Hall, entrance fee two shillings, eight ‘til midnight on a Saturday night. And the funds would go to the um Merchant Navy, the sailors in the Merchant Navy. It was probably once every two months or once every three months. The band used to be from Beachley, they were civilians working in Beachley during the war, some of them were soldiers. I know there was Bill Colley and Spotty Leopard, I think his wife’s still alive today, he used to play the accordion. I think there were only about four of five of them, but it was good music. Bertoni was there, but he was dear, I mean you had to pay him a lot of money, I didn’t have to pay Bill Colley very much money. It was a good little band, and they would always play what you wanted them to play you know.

Pillingers it was called, but Ben Proctor ran it look. He ran the shop, and he lived in the little house. When I used to have a dance, I always to used to go to Mr Proctor to buy a buttonhole to go on my frock. Whatever was in season he’d make me up three flowers to go on my dress. He’d give them to me

I mean it was only one time that it was serious in Chepstow, and that was when they dropped the bomb on the castle, down the castle wall. And that night we were all walking home from the shop, Beryl Mayo and I. And we could hear this German Plane, I mean you could tell the difference between German Planes and British Planes, and we could hear this plane, and we knew it was being chased. it let it’s load go look, so that it wouldn’t be caught with it’s load, it let it’s load go. if it had let it go two seconds later than it did, there wouldn’t have been anything of Chepstow left, it would have blown the middle out of Chepstow. But as it was, it went down, it didn’t even go in, down the castle look, it went on the wall, the cliffs the other side of the castle. But the shock wave went through the whole of the town. We were out in the street, we’d just finished work, we were going home. We were walking up by what is now the butchers shop on the corner by the car park there going into the Greyhound. it was a sweet shop in those days, but it’s the last shop on the corner. Anyway the only thing I can remember about that was somebody pulling us down in the front of this plate glass window, and saying “get down there’s a bomb falling!” Anyway we got down and I thought after we got up, what what on earth would we have been in front of a plate glass window! Anyway, the plate glass window didn’t break, and the bomb exploded, and that was the one there. Then he must have dropped another in the river look. They brought him down eventually, they brought him down in the Severn look. Yes, they brought him down, that was that.

Travel all we had was a slit across the the middle of the light, so you just had to put black tape on it, and just leave a slit in the middle.

Oh yes I missed Chepstow, I used to come home once a fortnight. I went to work for ICI in their ammunition depot in Birmingham, yes. But I used to come home, because we would change, we would do a fortnight on days and a fortnight on nights. So the fortnight that you changed over, you finished on Friday night, Friday morning, and you didn’t go back until Monday night look, so you got a good long weekend. I used to come home on those weekends by train. Oh very busy the trains were, I mean you couldn’t get on the trains in those days because the minute, all the soldiers could travel free, they didn’t have to pay, they travelled free yes. Their passes they would get, I don’t know whether it was one a month or every so often they would get a free rail pass look, and they would travel free.

Voluntary Organisations

then in 1941 Harold Morris (From The House of Quality) started the Army Cadet Corp in Chepstow. And I went with him, sort of helped him out sort of business. then we started with ten lads, aged anything from ten upwards. They stayed until they left school, and they were more or less taught how to be soldiers and all the rest of it. We’d meet once a week.

Harold Morris he was in the Home Guard first, and so was Herbert and Fred Griffiths. Was it Home Guard or Air Raid Wardens? I think they were Air Raid Wardens. Because I know Harold has told me that he had a rope from his house to Fred Griffiths’ house. If there was an Air Raid he’d pull the rope to wake Fred up! it was on his bed, from one bed to another bed

War Effort Materials

Yes they took them from the round the front of old Barclays Bank.

Work In Wartime
He finished his job with the Bristol Tramway Company, and war broke out. I mean he wasn’t even of calling up age, he was beyond it look, but he went to work in Dinham. I mean that was the more or less the only place of work look then.

I’d started work in the August 1938, and I started work for The House of Quality in Chepstow, which is now, who it’s clothes shop, it used to be Dunns. I used to start at nine o’clock and finish at half past seven. Monday Tuesday and Thursday nine to seven thirty, Wednesday was a half a day, so you only worked until one, then Friday and Saturday you worked ‘til eight o’clock. My wages when I started in 1938 was seven and sixpence a week. When I started to drive the van she paid me twelve and sixpence a week. We used to sell Music, Records, Wireless Sets and Accumulators, and batteries. Because you must remember that before the war the whole of the area outside Chepstow, there was no electricity. As I say I started for them in 1938, and in 1939 when war broke out. The laddie that drove the van, to deliver the Accumulators, I mean we used to go all round the district. We went to Brockweir and Catbrook and all right the way round. As soon as war broke out, he said I’m going into in the RAF. this was Peter Leach, he said he was going in the RAF. So Mrs Morris said “ what am I going to do, whose going to carry on driving the van” So I don’t know why, because I couldn’t go from Chepstow to Bulwark without being sick. So I said “I’ll drive the van if someone will teach me”. So she said “ how old are you”? I said I’m, I was sixteen in January. “Oh your old enough then she said”. So she said “Harold will teach you”. That’s her husband that’s right. So September 1939 I got my first provisional driving licence, which lasted six months, cost me five shillings, and I learnt to drive. That was quite interesting learning to drive. So in the January Peter left now, so I’d got to take over the Accumulator round. And I used to go all round the country with these Accumulators, because I mean it was the only means that the people had of running their wireless, and knowing what was going on, look. Good bad or indifferent weather, you still went and delivered the accumulators, as I say, it was it was a service to the people in the country. I suppose in a week we would deliver something like a hundred to two hundred Accumulators. Which were then brought back and charged in the shop for delivery again the next week look. Anyway I got to know quite a lot of people in the country, and they got to know me. And they were quite friendly.

then I went, in 1944 I went to work in Beachley, in the families shop. It was the NAFFI shop for the, the family and the people in the Camp look. So that was 1944, and they only sold sugar and butter and sweets and chocolate and that sort of thing, and fruit. Perhaps we’d get a box of apple every so often, or a few bananas every so often. Or a few lots of chocolate every so often. So what we used to do, if they’d got a family card there, that was like say they were five in the family, and they’d got five coupons, and they were all with us. They would get whatever was there, they’d get one. If it was apples it was one for each coupon. So they would get five apples to be fair. And those with one would only get one apple you see. Anyway we used to get lot’s of arguments. People used to come in “why has Mrs Co and So got this, and why couldn’t I have that, and all this that and the other. And I just used to say, “nothing to do with me, you’d better see Mrs Burt”, she was the Manageress and she’d have no truck with them anyway. It was fair what we were doing. I mean because these people would, I mean probably they’d got five or six in the family. They’d have one coupon in the NAFFI shop in Beachley, and the rest spread around the town look. So they could get everything from everywhere.

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