Autumn 2001

(This is the second of two articles about the last war, kindly written by Alan Simmons. The first article appeared in the Spring newsletter)

One night I awoke suddenly to the noise of a German aircraft. They could be identified by sound and that had penetrated my sleep. The noise came nearer and nearer and then a whistle came from the night sky - the bombs were on their way. I gripped the sides of the mattress and my jaw shut tight; I knew I was in the hands of the Almighty.

My bed slid across the stained floor boards and little pieces of linoleum and plaster fell from the ceiling. I heard the clay tiles on the roof clatter back down on the bathrooms. It felt like being in a cement mixer. Then all went still and I heard a rumble which I realized was masonry falling. I thought the walls would come in on me.

When the noise stopped I called out to my mother in the next room, and told her not to open the bedroom door because I thought the front of our terraced house had gone.

I opened my bedroom door and crawled out on the floor; everything was as it should be. On looking out of the hall window I could see that the rumble had been the two farm cottages opposite with seven people inside, which were completely flat.

In the morning it turned out they had all escaped, the bomb going under the cottages, the blast going through floors and ceilings and roof, catapulting the occupants still in their beds out into the night sky - a miracle!

On another night I was disturbed by shouting, this came from a search light station in the fields on the left hand side of Blundel Lane, opposite Irene Road. It had a wooden billet for the operators and a huge generator that could be heard all over Oxshott as the revs built up, also a sand bag turret with a twin Lewis gun inside. I looked up the beam of light and could clearly see a Heinkel III bomber heading for the coast having done his nasty deed.

With the station commanders shouting the lads with the Lewis gun got stuck in, it was easy to see the odd tracer bullet in the night sky helping their aim. Smoke started to come from the engines and a mighty cheer went up from the search light station. The light could not be kept on for long for it was all too easy to fire down the beam from a plane, but the bomber was in big trouble.

I got back into bed, and thought we could be in good hands after all, and went to sleep.

The other side of war I remember was – dig for victory- self support. It came much easier to us as Oxshott was a real country village then. My Grandparents on both sides knew a great deal. Grandfather on my father’s side was brought up in the workhouse and started work at eight years old; he never had any schooling.

Even Mother, who at twelve was given a blue/gray document stating she could read, write and add up, was sent to work away from home at twelve. I still have the document. The job was to clean the boots and shoes of students in a big college, and leave them in the right order.

We had two chicken houses with large runs. In summer they laid more eggs than we could eat, so buckets were filled with eggs and something called “water glass” filled the bucket. This set like frost over each egg and took us through the winter.

We had no freezers or the like at that time. Anyway with so many power cuts they would not have been a lot of good. We stored our runner beans in large earthenware jars. We obtained black salt the size of loaves of bread; a layer of salt, a layer of beans and they kept through the winter. We kept all manner of fruit in kilner jars, stored under the stairs, or anywhere.

Then there were the rabbits, which I had a lot to do with. Flemish giants, and giants they were, going well over 10lb. Collecting food in a sack every two days they cost nothing to keep. Saving the winter skins, and tacking them out on a board, they were treated with commercial alum which was always on tap at Williams the Chemist in the High Street.

One winter’s day I came in with cold hands and my Grandmother said, “Why don’t you make yourself some fur gloves?” With a few tips I cut out a pair of mittens from the rabbit skins, sewing the edge with carpet thread.

Many winter evenings I spent making rugs, cutting old rags into strips three inches by one, then opening out an old grain sack and using a carpet hook would fasten the strips to it.

The war went on and slowly the tables turned. My sister met a chap in the army. They got on very well. He did his bit for his country and went across the Channel on D-Day, but unfortunately he never came back. My sister never married.

Towards the end of the war we were treated to doodle bugs. Several came down locally, one at the Schiff home, one on the Crown Estate, another in the fields where Bill Stacey lived in a hedge, who I mentioned before. I realized this was very close to him and went over the fields to see if he was alright. He was in a fold waving a stick angrily; “That thing has blown all my saucepans out of the tree!”. I thought it funny but Bill did not.

It is a long time since the war came to an end, but I have never stopped my admiration for those strong folk of that time. Life is so different today.