Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
- Herausgeber: Merlin Unwin Books
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
Fleeing the heavy bombing in Kent in 1940, Anthea Toft was eight years old when she arrived with her mother to live on a remote farm in deepest Shropshire. The contrast between her sheltered middle class life in the Home Counties, and that of the hard-working rural existence of the farming folk with whom she found herself, is vividly recorded in this remarkable account. A sensitive and nervous child, Anthea recalls with astonishing clarity the events that changed her young life at that time. A fascinating snap-shot of the farming communities and a lost way of rural life in Shropshire during the second world war. Anthea's account as a child-evacuee is interspersed with photographs and highlights from letters written between her parents at the time.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 174
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
Ähnliche
BENEATH SAFER SKIES
A Child Evacuee in Shropshire
ANTHEA TOFT
For my parents
DOROTHY AND LESLIE CONSTABLE
who gave me so much
and shared my childhood dreams
Contents
Introduction
This story is based on over seventy letters written by my mother to my father and on my own memories of when I was evacuated. When war was declared and the Battle of Britain was raging over our home in Kent, I was taken by my mother to live in a remote valley on a working sheep farm on the borders of Wales. My mother’s anxiety, torn between fears for the safety of her only child and love for her husband, led to our sudden flight. She wrote to my father frequently describing our life there. The letters seem very naive by today’s standards but we were without the knowledge that today’s television coverage can bring, and the bulletins of war news, listened to every day, only added to our anxiety.
Communication with my father, left behind in Kent, was restricted, as of course mobile phones were not yet in use. Travel was difficult with petrol strictly rationed and all sign posts and place names on railway stations removed. Any journey to see us was long and arduous. Worry over my father and the rest of the family left in the south was increased by the mounting war news. Missing them, I often cried myself to sleep. Every day brought fresh anxieties, with tales of bombing in all the major cities and a growing fear of invasion. My mother’s idea of planning for this event seems naive in the extreme. Our home village in Kent was designated as the last stand before the onslaught on London itself and my father’s letters were full of news of the village being crowded with soldiers, guns and barbwire entanglements.
In the beautiful valley in which we found ourselves we were gradually assimilated into the farm life. It was a hard existence. Our first place, Mainstone Farm was rundown and dilapidated. It had no running water, no indoor sanitation, no electricity and very little heating. In the severe winter that followed I became ill and nearly died of pneumonia. In those days antibiotics and penicillin were not available and my mother resorted to kaolin poultices and my father to prayer. Deep snow prevented the doctor, on horseback, from reaching me.
Living in other people’s houses was not easy. I had to learn to fit in with other ways and share other children’s toys, since mine, with everything else, had been left behind. These experiences have affected me, I believe, all my life. I always feel the need to please. The loss of anything of mine is still a major tragedy. The fear of leaving home, even for a holiday, for many years made me anxious and sometimes even ill.
Everything became better when we moved to the much bigger Reilth Farm where a lively family of seven children welcomed me into their lives. I became fascinated by everything I saw done on the farm. I learnt to ride; to collect the eggs; to help in the harvest fields; to watch as bread, butter and poultry were prepared for the weekly market to which we went in the pony and trap; and to join in all the fun and games of this noisy household.
My mother was happy here but her letters were still full of plans to go home, which we eventually did, not to our own home but to another farm in Kent, until at last we found a house of our own and spent the last few years of the war enduring the bombardment from bombs and “doodle bugs”.
I was always to remember that time in Shropshire. Eventually, after training as a teacher, I came back to work at a school for blind children and then to start up, with my husband, a group home for children with special needs, on a small holding not far from that beautiful valley. My great love of the countryside has been a lifelong passion. Nurtured as it was by my early years on a farm it has led to the writing of several books of poems and stories. Now looking back I feel that I owe much to my experiences in that wonderful valley.
In Kent, aged four, and blissfully unaware of the great upheaval that was just about to overtake me
Chapter One
FARM LIFE
Early Summer 1940
The farmhouse kitchen was small and dark and, in spite of the July weather outside, a fire was burning in the old black range. Crouched on her knees in front of the fire, a small, white-haired woman held a cloth in one hand and a bar of strong-smelling soap in the other. In a large, studded, black leather chair, shabby and worn from long use, a big bulky man sat, sleeves rolled up, his black waistcoat unbuttoned, his feet in a basin of water. Slowly the woman bathed his feet with her worn red hands, while he sat, slumped and exhausted, staring into the fire. Just outside the door a wall-eyed collie lay on the damp flagstones. He too seemed worn out and we had to step over him to reach the interior of the kitchen.
As she heard our arrival, the woman straightened up, pushing her white hair aside with a damp hand.
‘There you are then,’ she said. ‘Come along in. Mr Pugh is expecting you.’
I don’t remember the long journey from Kent to Shropshire; the difficulties of travel in war-torn England, without signposts or road names, when reading a map made you an object of suspicion. The last few miles had been through trees down a narrow valley.
When we arrived there seemed nothing there, no friendly village street, only a few scattered houses, farm buildings, and then this house, small and square, half hidden by an enormous monkey-puzzle tree which grew so close to the building that its branches brushed against the small square windows. I don’t remember leaving my home, my beloved father, my grannie and grandpa and most of my toys, to travel across England, almost into Wales, to this unknown place.
As I stood with my mother by the door it looked strange and alien, quite unlike the pleasant home I had lived in for the first seven years of my life. The kitchen in which we found ourselves had a grey stone-flagged floor. A huge Welsh dresser filled one wall, while at the far end stood the old black range. In the centre of the room was a rexine-covered table on which stood a large, flower-patterned teapot, brown-stained and chipped, and cups and saucers which looked thick and ugly compared to the fine china used for the dainty teas, served on a trolley with a silver teapot, with which my mother entertained her friends.
The man bent to put on his boots. He struggled to his feet to make us welcome. The woman hurried away with the bowl and went to swing the kettle on its bar over the fire. Pushing off the sleeping cats, Mr Pugh made room for us on the settle by the fire which smelt strongly of wood smoke and made my nose wrinkle. He asked us kindly about our journey, reassuring us in his soft lilting voice that we were most welcome.
Mr Pugh lived with his housekeeper Miss Ellige. They had been prepared to take in evacuees, as everyone with room to spare had been told to do, but were only too happy when they were asked by my great aunt Julia, who lived with Miss Chopping the school mistress of Mainstone, Shropshire, if they would take my mother and me as paying guests. I expect we were a slightly better bet than complete strangers and would, moreover, make some contribution to their already dwindling bank balance. I was living in Kent with my mother and father when the war started.
At first everything seemed much as usual, but as the news grew more and more alarming people began to realize the dangers of living in southern England so near to London. Many children were being sent away for safety. My cousins were booked on a boat to go to America but cancelled at the last minute when a boatload of children was torpedoed. My mother and her sister wondered what to do. Then my great aunt wrote from the wilds of Shropshire inviting them to bring their children to her. She only had room for one family but she promised to find rooms for my mother and me nearby. Advised by many to go while they still could, driven by the fear of harm to their children, many mothers left their husbands in the south-east and went, believing then that it would only be for a few short weeks.
My mother and I found ourselves on this small farm owned by Mr Pugh. The farmhouse was a poor place, draughty and damp. The stone floors were cold and the doors and windows ill-fitting. We had one small bedroom and shared the rest of the house with Mr Pugh and Miss Ellige. Luckily Mr Pugh loved children. He was big and gentle and made a large, secure friend for me. I grew to love sitting on his bulky lap while he snoozed in front of the fire and told me stories of his Welsh homeland. ‘Tootie’ he called me, which I found meant ‘Little Dear’.
I came to follow him everywhere as, with his sheepdog, he went about the farm. His manner was slow and forgetful and I know now that his bad management led to his downfall, but to me he was always kind and loving and I followed him like a shadow, deprived as I was of all but one of the familiar, much-loved adults in my earlier life.
Miss Ellige, on the other hand, was small, sharp and bitter-tongued. She was Mr Pugh’s devoted slave. She resented our intrusion into her home and resented also the attention I received. She tried to be kind, but I felt, with a child’s intuition, that she disliked me. Miss Ellige was ‘chapel’ and on the Sabbath, after attending the square chapel building in the opposite direction to the little church which my mother and I were sometimes to attend, she sat in the cold, unwelcoming sitting room, unused in the week when we all lived in the kitchen, reading her bible.
The little chapel at Mainstone, Miss Ellige’s preferred place of worship
We had not been there long when, looking at me over the top of her steel pince-nez, she informed me that I was not to play with my toys on the Lord’s day of rest. When my mother protested, she agreed that I might read a book quietly. After we had been there some time we had further proof of her religious beliefs. One day Mr Pugh harnessed up the old horse and we all climbed into the trap to travel twenty miles to a farm near Welshpool to visit Miss Ellige’s family. We were made welcome and given tea but I could not understand a word they said as they spoke only Welsh. To keep me amused I was put to sit opposite a huge picture which hung on the wall in the sitting room. It depicted, in great detail, the narrow way leading to Paradise and the broad way leading to destruction. The vision of hellfire was very vivid and I sat there a very long time. This impressed me enormously. I have never forgotten it.
With Miss Ellige, learning the art of bottle-feeding lambs
On our first evening at the farm, the washing things were quickly put away and after tea we were invited to sit by the fire to recover after our long journey. But exhausted as they were after a day on the farm, our hosts were relieved when my mother said she would like to take me straight to bed. We were shown up some dark uncarpeted stairs to a small bedroom filled by a huge double bed. Its big goose-feather filled pillows and white cotton bedspread looked enormously inviting, and after a quick wash with cold water in the basin on the marble washstand, and a short prayer of thanks for our safe arrival and for the safety of my father left alone in Kent, I jumped into bed. The dark shadows caused by the flickering candle as it wavered in the draughts and the scratching of the monkey-puzzle tree against the window did not stop me from falling quickly asleep.
The next day things on the farm went on as usual. The work was hard. The buildings were neglected and tumbled-down, the yard covered in weed and thick dung, the animals thin and unhealthy. But to me it represented freedom. I spent hours in the fields at harvest-time watching Brownie, the old horse, drag the binder round and round or riding behind him on the heavy dray. The corn was full of thistles and my arms were scratched and sore as I struggled to pile the sheaves into stooks to help old John, the labourer, whose slow movements still seemed so much quicker than mine.
Old John wore faded blue clothes and a cloth cap. He kept a bottle of methylated spirits hidden in the hedge to refresh himself on the way round. He worked tirelessly whatever the weather but I believe he was often found drunk in a ditch somewhere and slept rough in one of the buildings. On those days in the fields however, as he struggled to save the poor crop while the rabbits played hide and seek in the corn, he was gentle and soft-spoken and very patient with my efforts. I remember him with great affection.
Old John worked tirelessly to save the poor crop while rabbits played hide-and-seek in the corn
A few cows were milked in the old cowshed. Fetched in each day from their thistle-filled field, they stood in the shadowy darkness of the old building munching gently and shifting their weight from one foot to the other on the cobbled floor. Mr Pugh milked them by hand, his bulky figure balanced precariously on a three-legged stool, as he murmured softly to them to yield up their milk. I shall always remember watching them from the open doorway with the rays of sunlight making patterns on the cobbled floor. It was the first of many memories of shadowy cowsheds filled with the sweet smell of these my favourite animals. It was a distinct smell: their warm, grass-filled breath as I leaned over to fasten the chains round their velvety, wrinkled necks. Their soft friendly eyes would gaze at me placidly, their tails swishing as they stood patiently, pestered by flies, waiting to give up their meagre supply of milk. It was my treat to be given milk in a battered old mug straight from their soft warm teats. It was frothy and delicious and no doubt very unhygienic.
There were sheep on the farm, up on the high fields near Offa’s Dyke. Many of them had patches of worms under their tails and were very thin. Some had that dreadful disease that made them turn in circles until they died. Sasnass was an orphan lamb that had to be fed each day from a bottle. His mother had died and no other sheep could be persuaded to take him. His wool was surprisingly hard and wiry, not soft as I had expected. His legs stuck out like sticks as I carried him about in my arms. I watched fascinated as Miss Ellige prepared his feed in an old wine bottle with a baby’s teat on the end. It was warmed and cleaned with water out of the old black kettle on the range and then half filled with warm milk. I was allowed to hold it while he sucked fiercely at the teat, often covering both of us with the milk in his eagerness to get it all. I had to hold the bottle high to prevent air getting in and, as Sasnass grew very rough as he grew bigger, I had to hang on with both hands to prevent him butting it out of my grasp.
My only enemies were the geese. These large white birds inhabited the field close to the house and were often hanging about the back door. From the moment they came hissing from their shed to guzzle voraciously at their trough of meal and kitchen scraps, they kept a beady eye on all who went in and out and were as keen as watchdogs to warn of the approach of any stranger. They would then rush at them with their heads close to the ground and wings outstretched, hissing fiercely. They could give a good peck and, I was told, could break my arm with their wings. I kept well clear. The geese had a daily routine that hardly varied. They would take themselves off to the stream for a swim, led by the gander, at about the same time each day. On the bank the ground was covered with feathers where they had preened themselves. This task was often concluded with a triumphant cackle when, standing on tiptoe, they would raise their beaks high in the air and compete with each other in making the most noise. The only time I had cause to be grateful to them was when, leaning on the rickety fence by the back door and chatting to Miss Ellige who was pounding dough in the kitchen, the fence broke and I fell backwards onto the cobbles below. A lump as big as an egg came up on the back of my head and, to comfort me, Miss Ellige gave me a large white goose egg. This I sold to my aunt for sixpence.
The days passed and I grew used to living there. Letters from my father told of bombing raids over London: of the Battle of Britain being waged over his head, of the terrible struggle taking place to repel the German bombers and of the preparations for the invasion of England that Hitler promised was soon to take place. In August Winston Churchill gave his famous speech praising our airmen with the words, ‘Never …. was so much owed by so many to so few’. But the news grew worse and Churchill warned parliament that invasion could be any day. ‘Perhaps tonight, perhaps next week, perhaps never,’ were his words. Hitler actually named the day of the invasion, first as the seventh and then as the fifteenth of September. Huge masses of landing barges were gathered in the French ports and massed troops were poised waiting for the command to invade, but perhaps because of the relentless bombing by our forces, he seemed to change his mind and it was postponed again. News came from Romania of atrocities and a terrible earthquake there. Nearer home, as we looked up into the quiet skies over the Mainstone valley, came the news of the terrible bombing of our major cities.
As time went by and winter approached, my aunt and cousins and some friends who had come with us to Shropshire became unhappy and restless and spoke of returning home. My mother was torn between her loyalty to her husband and the safety of her only child. The separation from my father was made worse by our lack of contact. Apart from his letters, often accompanied by little packets of sweets, we heard little of him, as phone calls were very difficult. The only call box was a quarter of a mile away down the lane and there was often a four-hour delay to be connected.
My father, Leslie Constable, nicknamed Johnnie
My mother, Dorothy Constable, nicknamed Tommie
Life in the farmhouse was hard and often dreary. We had no electricity or running water. The house was very cold and we began to run short of fuel. I began to show signs of the asthma and bronchitis that was to make me ill all through my early years. Because of the dangers to our merchant ships, which were being attacked by German U-boats with devastating effect, there were many shortages. Rationing began to bite. Bananas were unknown. Coming from the ‘Garden of England’ as we did, we found the food rather stodgy and the shortage of fresh fruit and vegetables very trying. But compared to others, we were extremely lucky.
