CIVILIANS AT WAR - CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO - CIVILIANS AT WAR

By Len Reeve

This is my memories of being evacuated twice during WW II. aged between 8 and 14 years.

Soon after we arrived at Bodmin Road a large forest fire started, it was on the far side of the railway line from us, but we often could smell and see the smoke, depending on the wind. A lot of soldiers helped the Fire Brigade to fight the fire, even so it took a couple of weeks to finally put it out. Some days we could see parts of it burning, but on other days it was over the hillside, out of our sight.
We went to school with the local schoolchildren; it was a village school of two rooms, the infants were in the smallest room, while everybody else was in the larger room. Once again, there was no running water, gas or electricity, and the toilets were down the garden. Our school hours were adjusted to fit in with daylight hours, mainly to allow us to walk home in daylight. At about the time of this move, I should have taken my eleven-plus exam, but because I had moved, I wasn’t registered in Cornwall, and so I couldn’t sit the exam.
During our stay in Cornwall, we learnt quite a bit about gardening and country life. Mr Trevains garden provided the majority of fruit and vegetables eaten in both cottages, two outhouses provided a suitable storage area for vegetables stored for the winter. A third outhouse stored dried logs and kindling for the house fires; every so often a ten-foot tree trunk was delivered, sometimes it was split down its length, and sometimes we would have to split it. One of my tasks was to help saw the long lengths into about nine-inch lengths. I would also chop up these logs into a suitable size for the house fires, some of the logs I would split down even more into kindling, ready to light the fires.
Another task of mine was, on a Saturday morning, to walk down to the local sawmill. As there was no electricity in the cottages, we used an accumulator to operate the radio. If we were careful, one accumulator would last a week. The sawmills had a charging unit, and recharged accumulators for nearly everybody around. The sawmill was owned by two brothers, Llewellyn and Stan Toms, Mrs Trevains sister was married to Llewellyn Toms.
There was a small field between our cottages and the branch line, sometimes we would play in the field if it was unoccupied by animals, also we sometimes walked further down into the woods alongside the river Fowey. Often there would be little streamlets, which we might dam and build water wheels, or connect several streamlets into one larger stream, it was good fun as we often got very muddy.
At one point the army came and camped under the large beech trees of the drive up to the front of Lanhydrock House, everybody was in bell tents. The officers mess was set up in the playground of our school, the officers were very generous with their bars of chocolate. While the soldiers were in camp, we arrived home from school one Friday to find armed guards outside our house. We soon discovered that the royal train was standing on the Bodmin — Bodmin Road branch line, about 100yds along the road from our house; the King and Queen had come to inspect the soldiers in camp. We went along to have a look at the train, but didn’t see anybody other than soldiers.
We went to Church up at Lanhydrock House, Sunday School, led by Miss Violet (I believe a sister of Lord Roberts), took place in the music room of the house itself, (now the shop and entrance hall for the National Trust). In the winter, the evening service took place during the afternoon, because of the blackout. Several of my schoolmates took turns to operate the organ hand-bellows. When we arrived in Cornwall one of the first things we were asked was “Are you Church or Chapel?” There were a few special occasions when we attended the local ‘Chapel’, it was well out in the country, and we sat on long benches. It is now a private residence.
When we first went to school, everybody ate their pasties out in the playground, whatever the weather, after awhile, an empty house, across the road from the school, was used as a dining room, arrangements were made to heat our meat pasties. This, I believe, was at the same time that school dinners were introduced. During school holidays, my brother and I sometimes went out onto Bodmin Moor with Mrs Trevains nephew, Roddy, and built dens out of ferns; on our way across the fields, we would pick a root vegetable to eat for our dinner.
During the time that we were in Cornwall a fete was held in the grounds of Lanhydrock House, there were all the usual stalls etc to be found in a country fete, including bowling for a live young pig. Also during the fete, we were able to walk around inside the house itself.
As we were about three miles from the nearest newspaper shop (in Bodmin), the daily papers were put on the branch line train to Bodmin Road station. On my way home from school, I would walk to the station to collect the morning paper. While I was at the station, the Cornish Rivera express train would pass through at speed, I always enjoyed feeling the rush of air that accompanied the train. The road up to Bodmin Road Station from Lanhydrock House passed some turkey pens, one day, on my return from the station, I found that the turkeys had escaped from the pen. The turkeys were all over the road, calling, gobble gobble, gobble gobble, as they were bigger than me, and I wasn’t used to being with animals, I found them quite frightening. I shouted at the top of my voice, eventually Mrs Trevains heard me, and came down to where I was, she quickly chased the turkeys back into their pen and fastened the gate again.
Something which was also strange to us was the lack of shops; the nearest shops were 3 miles away in Bodmin. Mrs Trevains bought all her foodstuffs from the CO-OP in Bodmin. She had two order books, while one was at the shop being processed; Mrs Trevains would have the other at home, adding all the items she required for her next order. Once a week the order would be delivered and the order books exchanged. All the meals were planned at least a week ahead. Because of this system, we new what meal we would have on each day of the week; roast on Sunday, finish Sundays meat on Monday, Wednesday was always a fried meal, while Friday was fish. Most vegetables were supplied from the garden. As our milk came straight from the farm along the road, most Sundays Mrs Trevains would place some milk in an enamel pan on top of a paraffin heater until it was possible to lift off the clotted cream.
When the branch line train left Bodmin Road station for Bodmin, it doubled back and passed in front of the cottage where we were staying, we could wave to anybody coming or going by train, if we knew when they were travelling. Sometimes we would catch the train via Bodmin to Wadebridge, and then another branch line to Padstow where there were some lovely sandy beaches. We also visited Parr Sands some Saturday afternoons.
One night, during the Plymouth blitz, just after my brother and I had gone to bed, we heard the whistle of a bomb falling, followed by a loud explosion; we both arrived at the foot of the stairs before the explosion, and probably without touching the stairs. Shortly after this, as the London bombing had ceased, our dad came and took as back home. The journey home took us over 24 hours, stopping and starting, backwards and forwards, until we eventually arrived home, very tired and hungry.
On our way to school, we passed the doors of a furniture factory. One hot day we found the front doors open wide to let some fresh air in; being curious as small boys usually are, we went up to the doors to investigate; the factory was full of gliders, the like of which I recalled when I saw Newsreel photographs of the airborne landings in Normandy. We scrounged small pieces of Perspex from the windows from which we carved Spitfires etc.
In September 1943, two or three of my friends and I joined the 6th East Surrey Company of The Boys’ Brigade. A young man recruited us while we were kicking a ball around; he asked if we wanted to play on a proper football pitch with a real football to kick? In addition, to go camping? It was too good an opportunity to miss. I remained in the BB until I joined the Royal Navy at 18, about 5 ½ years later. Sometimes, if my father had a free sat or sun afternoon, we would go for a cycle ride; we often came across troop encampments, vehicle parks etc. For example, sometimes half a dual carriageway would be closed to allow tanks, lorries, jeeps etc to be parked waiting D-day.
Eventually we took to sleeping back in our beds again, as it was so quiet. One hot night, the following summer, I had gone to bed with the window wide open, allowing the curtain to billow out of the window to get some fresh air into the room; the siren had sounded, but I didn’t move as there had been several warnings of late, but without any enemy action near us. Soon I could hear in the distance, the sound of an aircraft, it was an unusual sound, so I wasn’t sure whether it was friend or foe. As the wind blew my curtain out, I could see an aircraft flying along with a white light on, then I saw clusters of rockets going up, and the aircraft seemed to pass through each cluster undamaged. I was just about to say to my dad, who had come into my bedroom, that the pilot was either very brave, or an idiot, when the light went out, and shortly afterwards there was the flash of a large explosion. The next morning, we heard that it was the first of the new pilot-less planes, called V1’s. We nicknamed them Doodlebugs, and within a day or two, there was an air raid in progress nearly all day and night. Mostly, while the engine remained running, the aircraft continued to fly, but when the engine stopped, it generally would dive to earth with a large explosion on contact, occasionally, one would glide for quite some time, before falling to earth, they were even known to turn around after the engine had stopped.
As soon as we heard of the Normandy landings, our history and geography teacher said, “Put your text books away boys, this is history in the making, and we are a part of it.” He then produced a large wall map of Europe, and pinned it to the blackboard. We all took newspaper cuttings to school and inserted pins into the map where we knew that the Allies had taken and joined then up with cotton. This procedure continued until after I left school in the April of 1945. During this time, the Germans started to launch what they called V2’s, these were rockets with huge explosive charges. It was not possible to hear these rockets coming, but when they did land, mostly in residential areas, they would flatten an area bigger than a football pitch.
April 1945 I left school, I started work at the Croydon Iron Foundry with my father. A weekly collection was started of two shillings and sixpence, for every pound that we collected, the firm added another. This was towards a party, which was to be held in a neighbouring café, where most of us ate our lunches. We held our party on the night that we heard of the German surrender, the following day was a holiday, during the afternoon we took a train into London, and walked around everywhere, until we finished up on the Queen Victoria monument, outside Buckingham Palace. Here we joined the crowds shouting for the King and Queen, until eventually they came out, accompanied by Queen Mary, the Princesses, and Mr Winston Churchill, and waved to us for quite awhile. We only just made it back to Victoria Station in time to catch the last train home at midnight.

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