An Osmington girl's memories of war
I was brought up and spent my early years in Osmington. I’m now in her eighties and I remember my early life as fairly privileged.
My family was well-off and I was totally unaware of how some people lived.
When war broke out, I wanted to join the Land Army but my parents wouldn’t allow it so I worked on a farm at Warmwell.
I remember evacuees who were stationed at the Riviera Hotel at Bowleaze Cove, and in particular a little boy with false legs.
He took a liking to me and one day sat on my knee for so long that when he got off, I had enormous bruises where his artificial legs had been pressing. I hadn’t the heart to ask him to get off.
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Written by June Lawes.
At War: Stories of life during the war
I was a WREN mechanic
During the WW11, I was a WREN mechanic at Yeovilton working on Spitfires.
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Written by Vicky McKay.
Leigh residents reminisce
A conversation between Kath Harvey, Edith Jessop, Bet Coffin and Grace Fudge.
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Living in the country during the war was probably not as hard as in the town as everybody agreed that although bread and other foods were rationed, families were never hungry because they could always kill a rabbit.
Edith said that she could even still remember how to skin one! She was born and brought up on a farm and she and her sisters used to have to milk 60-70 cows between them. Bet said her father would kill a pig if necessary.
Edith remembered that after Dunkirk, there were lots of soldiers in the village and the army took over any empty cottages and billeted soldiers with local families. The soldiers had nothing, only the clothes they stood up in.
She remembered a platoon of Military Police, straight from the beaches arriving in her village, and a sergeant coming to the farm and asking her mother for food to feed the soldiers. Her mother turned out the contents of her cupboards and gave him all the tinned food she had.
King George VIth visited the Army Headquarters at Higher Wraxall Manor and inspected the troops. He travelled by the Royal Train to Maiden Newton and then was driven in an open topped car through the lanes.
Edith saw the car pass and waved at it. Soldiers from the Royal Sussex Regiment, The Kings own Scottish Borderers, and the Highland Light Infantry all passed through the village at different times. Edith’s sister married a soldier.
Going to a dance and coming back with the mumps!
I’m originally from Surrey but I first came to Dorset in 1945 when I was sent to Lulworth with the Army.
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They wanted to get rid of us! We’d finished the last push in Italy and we were told we were being sent back to England to prepare for the attack on Japan.
Well then, of course, they dropped the bomb and there was no need any more. I breathed a sigh of relief I can tell you! I was quite happy in Lulworth.
I was in Lulworth for about two years before I was demobbed, mainly on the telephone and try to dodge duties! We didn’t mix a lot with the locals mind, they kept themselves to themselves. But we used to wander down to the Cove quite a lot and up over the hills.
And then one day I got the mumps after going to a dance in Owermoigne and ended up spending six weeks in the isolation hospital at Alderney – and I’d only gone for the beer!
I’d got up that day, got dressed and felt completely fine. It was a Friday and a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go to a dance, and I said ‘is there a bar?’ – because that was my usual question! – and he said ‘as far as I know’. Well, that was good enough for me.
Last thing I remember was being thrown into a 3 tonne truck to come back to camp and waking up the next day with a square jaw, my neck was really swollen.
I felt fine but they sent the isolation hospital ambulance to get me. I arrived at the hospital and after about 10 minutes I remember this enormous great sister came in, she was called Sister Murphy – but they called her Spud Murphy, and she said to me ‘not in bed? If you’re not in bed in 5 minutes, I’ll put you in!'
One look at her and I knew discretion was the better part of valour!
Later another nurse came in to see me. She was holding a bowl of water and had come to give me a blanket. She said ‘Right then, pyjamas off! – trousers as well! – and of course, I had to marry her after that!
She looked after me for five or six weeks at the hospital and eventually became my wife.
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Written by a Dorset man.
We will remember them
I realised that there were many memorials for service people, but not for civilians who died as the result of enemy action mainly in World War II.
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In the Southern Times of 23 May 1941, it was reported that casualties would be buried in Melcombe Regis cemetery Newstead Roa, after hostilities this would be looked after by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
In Weymouth and Portland, 116 civilians died aged between 8 months and 91 years, 78 of these were in Weymouth.
There were air raids on 51 days on Weymouth and Portland. The first raid with civilian casualties was on 11th August 1940 at midday. In October 1940, a single aircraft bombed the train and bus station killing 2 children and 3 adults.
On 17 November 1940, two parachute mines were dropped on Weymouth, one failed to ignite but the other exploded at Chapelhay, 13 people lost their lives all in Franchise Street, 879 houses were damaged, 77 beyond repair.
On 1st May 1941 there was a day time raid on the Torpedo Factory at Wyke Regis. It was lunch time so no one in the factory was hurt, but 2 men walking along Portland Road were killed by machine gun fire.
Chapelhay was hit on 9 May 1941 when 7 members of the Adnam family were killed in Oakley Place. The worst raid was on 2 April 1942 on Weymouth and resulting in the loss of 22 lives.
Only a week before D-Day on 28 May 1944, with Weymouth and Portland packed with military, people and ships, Weymouth had its last raid, this hit the hospital, luckily there were no casualties, but 3 members of the rescue party on the way to hospital were killed by the last bomb to be dropped on Weymouth.
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Written by David Lane.
Idyllic days at Seatown - no more!
With the outbreak of war, the idyllic days at Seatown came to an end.
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One of my brothers arranged for the family to move to a new house in Crock Lane in Bridport where it would be safer.
I was an ATS at Bovington in the war, a caterer in the officer’s mess and I really enjoyed it. I liked meeting lots of people, in particular the Canadians who I found interesting and real gentlemen! They were sent to Bovington to learn how to drive tanks, many of them having come from the cavalry.
I used to get annoyed with one colonel who dined with all the top officers and used to introduce me to everyone at the table, saying that I’d been to Rodean! I told him that I hadn’t and got annoyed with him but he kept repeating it.
In fact, I had been to Harcombe House at Rhode Hill, near Lyme Regis! It was a domestic science finishing school and I went there before the war, boarding there and going home some weekends. I learnt to be independent there, making the break from my family for the first time.
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Written by Dorothy.
Sherborne in the war
I met my husband on New Year’s Eve 1935 and then did not see him again until New Year’s Eve 1936. We were married in 1940.
My employer made a lovely wedding cake for me and paid for my wedding dress to be made. By now, the bombing raids had started and so every time the sirens went, the seamstress who was making my wedding dress used to roll the dress up in a big sheet and sit with it in the cupboard under the stairs until the ‘all clear’ sounded.
The dress and the seamstress survived!
My husband and I were married in September 1940, although he was nearly late for the wedding because by then he was stationed in Wales and the nearest station had been bombed.
From 1940, I had to register with the employment people, so that if I wasn’t in work or wished to volunteer, I would be given a job to help the war effort.
Although I was married, my husband was in the army so I was still living in with the family but the family started taking in evacuees and we had two little boys from Southampton who were little devils and had never seen a bath in their life and it got too much.
The next time I had to go to the employment office, I volunteered to do war work and I was given a job at Westlands in Bradford Road. Sherborne.
We were making Spitfires, we had to put sheets of metal in a ‘jig’ and working in pairs. We had to drill tiny holes in the metal sheets.
There were about 300 men and women working in the factory and we were one of 2 Westland factories in Sherborne. A truck brought all the work to be done in the morning and then in the afternoon took the finished work to Yeovil to be assembled.
I worked there for 4 years and during all that time only had one sheet sent back as it was faulty. We worked from 7am to 6pm and sometimes until 9pm. We didn’t have any days off and sometimes worked all weekend.
Part of our duties at Westland was fire-watching and women had to do this as well as the men. We had to stay overnight at the factory to make sure no fires broke out. Once the sirens went and German bombers came over looking for Westlands, but were intercepted by Spitfires, so dumped their bombs on the town and a family in Lenthay was killed. There was a big crater by the school.
Sometimes word would go round that the shoe shop in town had a delivery of shoes and so we would beg our boss for an hour off to go and buy shoes with coupons we had saved.
We all had our bikes outside and we would all rush off together. Once it was frosty and when we put on our brakes at the Halt sign by the post house, we all skidded and ended up in a pile in the middle of the road!
My husband was supposed to be in the tank corps and so had to go to Bovington to train. The first time he drove a tank, he went too fast down one of the steep banks on the range and the officer instructing him in the tank fell out. My husband said that he had never heard so many swear words in such a short time ever!
Then he had to go abroad but could not tell me where he was going, all he could say that it was very hot. He was sent to Burma, while he was out there he had dysentery and came home with malaria at the end of the war and the local GP didn’t know how to treat it.
During the war, I hardly ever had any news or got letters from my husband and what letters I did get were censored and there was very little that he was allowed to write.
I carried on working at Westlands and American soldiers started to arrive in Sherborne. Some girls from Westlands married Americans.
The bombing which had started early in the war carried on and some American soldiers stationed at Haydon Park which was part of the Castle were bombed. Council houses in Newland were bombed.
My husband came back from the war in 1946 when the troop ship docked. Some other soldiers shouted abuse, saying they were ‘D Day Dodgers’ because they hadn’t been at Dunkirk. He found it very upsetting.
When he came back from the war, he was allowed to wear his Chindit hat he had been fighting with them (3rd Indian Division) in Burma and thought them very clever and brave and his hat always meant a lot to him.
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Written by Rene Wilton-Blackmore.
Painter and decorator volunteers for RAF
When I left school I went to work with my father as a painter and decorator.
We went to all the houses in the village and made up all the colours ourselves, but all the paints contained lead and cases of lead poisoning were common.
At the outbreak of the war, four of us decided to go to Bristol to volunteer for the RAF. The next day, I was the only one to turn up at the station so I went to Bristol and volunteered.
At first they said that there were no vacancies so I said that I would go back home and wait to be called up, so then they went out of the room and when they came back, said that there was one vacancy and so I joined the RAF.
I never left the country during the war, I worked in Yeovil at Westlands and once went to Wales for 6 months, but usually I came home every night, getting a lift with a milk tanker.
My friends were all sent to Burma, where they caught malaria and were very ill. After the war, I went back to painting and decorating and worked until I was 90.
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Written by Bill Gaulter.
A London evacuee in Dorset
I was three years old when I was evacuated from St John’s Wood in London to Dorset. I remember my mother and grandmother leaving me at a reception centre where I cried for them all night.
Next morning I was taken by car with 2 WVS ladies, very distressed and car sick to my home for the duration of the war. I was delivered to the small hamlet of Newtown and a thatched cottage. Aunty picked me up and I was put into a lovely feather bed and made so welcome.
I bonded well with Aunty and Uncle and settled in with their son and daughter. Uncle worked in the paper mill at the end of the village. Their son joined the RAF and sadly lost his life over Holland.
The cottage had oil lamps and a large kitchen range for cooking and heat. The large garden provided all the vegetables and fruit and we had chickens and rabbits. The well in the front garden provided all the water. The washhouse had a large copper for doing the washing and the privy was down the end. There was always a cat called Fluffy.
Opposite the cottage was the village forge where we could watch the blacksmith shoe the horses. The milkman came twice daily with his horse and cart with the milk churns on.
I went to Witchampton Church School with my friend Alan, who came from a large family nearby. In summer we paddled in the mill stream and caught minnows in jam jars, avoiding the eels!
We used to visit Uncle in the mill to see the huge vats of pulp which was turned into massive rolls of paper.
Airmen used to visit from the nearby re-fuelling station and I still have a perspex cross made by one of them.
Aunty and I had a fright one afternoon while we were in the garden, a German plane came so low over the hedges we could see the guns and the pilot’s helmet and goggles. We just stood petrified. I think the plane later crashed and the pilot was on the run for a couple of days before being captured. I still have a horror of leather helmets and goggles.
On Saturdays we used to wait at the bus shelter just past the post office to wait for Toomers bus into Wimborne. Sometimes we went to the Tivoli cinema, I remember seeing a Roy Rogers film.
Fish and chips were always a delicious treat and I loved to hear the Salvation Army band. I remember there was a British Restaurant and Boots the Chemist with a lending library. There used to be an ‘Olde Worlde’ tea shop in a side street by the Minster where we would have a cup of tea after doing the shopping. Oh, and those public conveniences with, I think, a turnstile and penny in the slot.
On rare occasions we caught the Royal Blue to Bournemouth for the big shops, that was an all day affair and we would visit the gardens.
At some point during my stay I had a spell in the cottage hospital, I was taken wrapped in a blanket in the doctor’s car. The postman diagnosed chicken pox when I developed all over spots! Calomine lotion and Germalene ointment seemed to cure all ills during the war.
My little brother joined me for a couple of years and my father used to visit, sometimes with my mother, when he had leave from the Army.
I went back to London in July 1945. I remember celebrating the end of the war at school, we had a party and Mrs Hill, our teacher, gave me a bouquet to present to the lady who lived in the Manor House.
I was so lucky to have such a happy time as an evacuee and I often return to the village and reminisce, drive past the cottage, the village shop, still there, the chapel where I went to Sunday School and ‘rest and be thankful’ the seat round the tree at the junction at the top of the hill.
The local garage is still there, the gates to Crichel House where we used to watch cricket in summer.
The house across the road from the cottage where two old ladies lived who bred bantams. They used to give me little eggs and pulled out my loose teeth with string and a door handle. It is still so timeless.
Over the last few years I have discovered that my father’s family were Dorset people, at one time according to the local census there were 41 of his ancestors living and working in and around Corfe Castle village, so it is in my blood, it’s my spiritual home.
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Written by Sandra Banks.
Weymouth during the war
During the war there was so much traffic coming down Wyke Road to the harbour, ready to go over to France, that you couldn’t cross the road.
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Somebody had to go out to stop the traffic to allow people to cross otherwise you just couldn’t get through. The war brought a lot of money in to Weymouth and loads of people.
I loved sitting on the Esplanade watching the people go by. Everyone used to look so smart.
I remember one day, just sitting there and all of a sudden a submarine came up in the bay. All of a sudden there it was.
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Written by Ida Goddard.
Blackout warden in Dorchester
I remember the blackout in Dorchester and walking everywhere in the dark.
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If you ‘showed a light’ the warden would knock at the window and tell you a light was showing and to pull the curtain over.
During the war, Grandfather and Auntie were bombed out at Weymouth and came to stay with us until they were re-housed.
They were re-housed next door to the bombed house they recently had to leave!
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Written by a Dorset person.
Update on a London evacuee in Dorset
I read with interest the article by Sandra Banks on her evacuation, at the age of three to a thatched cottage in the small Dorset hamlet of Newtown, Wicthampton.
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I live in that cottage, now Hamble Cottage, although it's no longer thatched, but still very recognisable from the photograph.
Some years ago a gentleman visited the cottage, introduced himself to my husband and said that he had been evacuated to the cottage during the war and showed him photographs taken during that time; perhaps it was Sandra's brother Ralph.
Sandra mentioned the school teacher Mrs Hill, she still lives in the same cottage and is now 102. On her 100th birthday the church bellringers rang a full peal of bells in her honour and since then commemorate the day with a half peal.
She also talked of Wimborne cottage hospital, which is now a thriving Community hospital, currently having a new operating theatre built to replace the old one.
How lovely it was to hear of life in this area over 60 years ago.
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Written by Glenies Bryant.
When the Star Hotel was hit by a bomb
During the war we had a few bombs dropped on Bridport.
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A lady was killed in The Star Hotel, I think she was the owner. It was the tall hotel in West Street and some of the building crashed down.
We were at home and heard it, we all stayed in for safety as we were very frightened.
I think there was another bomb somewhere down by the station too.
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Written by Pam Clewlow.
When Dad came home from the war
After the end of the Second World War the headmistress of my school, Maud Road Infants School, Dorchester used to read out a list of the Dad's who were coming home, which was upsetting if your Dad’s name wasn’t read out.
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My Dad had been fighting in Egypt and Italy and came home in 1947. I didn’t recognise my father, there was no bonding and I had no affection for him.
When Dad was away at war, we were part of an extended family in Stratton (Dad’s family) and Dorchester (Mum’s family) – that was all the family I knew.
Dad never once cuddled me or kissed me, the effect was in the way I treated my children – playing with them and giving them lots of hugs and kisses.
Father had two jobs – at Tilley’s Cycle shop in South Street and as a night telephonist for the GPO. When my father came home we had a family get together at my grandmother’s cottage at Stratton.
There seemed to be a lot of people there. One was my Aunty Rose, who was weeping because her husband had been killed at Kohima in Burma.
We were a very close-knit family and we supported Aunt Rose and her son. He did his best for us and, working so hard, he was able to buy our rented house in Dagmar Road in the early 1950s.
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Written by Adrian Downton.
Portland girl runs a garage
I was born in Portland but when I left school I went to work up in the north of England. I loved it but when the war started I returned to Portland.
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My brothers ran a garage but when they were called up I took over the running of it. I had no experience but it was straightforward and I had watched them.
The local paper did a big article on me and the local men trusted me with their cars.
It was a lot simpler then and there were not many cars around, there was no problem with speeding or anything.
My brothers had the garage to come home to after the war.
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Written by Margaret.
Evacuation to Weymouth
I was evacuated, on and off, from Bristol to Weymouth from 1940 when I was about one year old.
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My aunt and my grandma to whom we were evacuated, took us to the sands at Weymouth. I remember the sand and the sand fleas.
There were a lot of other evacuees from London, I was told not to play with them. The sand fleas got into our clothes and towels. The London evacuees were poorer than us, they had boots, whereas I had sandals.
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Written by Sylvia O'Connor.
Family life in Dorchester during the war
During the war we moved to Cambridge where my husband was posted, but I missed Dorset and longed for the sea.
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There was a little boy living next door to us and I used to tell him about the sea because he had never seen it and I used to draw pictures of buckets and spades and sand castles for him.
We went back to Dorchester after about 6 months. Then we lived in Milford Road with my parents and then we had the first post war Council House to be built in Coburg Road.
We could see the Ridgeway from our house and the children could roam all over as we were surrounded by fields.
From where we lived, we could go down Gloucester Road, cross Bridport road and go down through the fields to the river and the boys used to go swimming in the river.
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Written by Madge Swain.
Welsh Fusiliers in Puddletown
The war caused a great upheaval to life in Puddletown.
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Before the war, the only excitement was the Vicarage Fete where Miss Constance, the sister of the local squire, doled out very weak orange juice.
She also gave a Christmas party where we were always given a toy and tea consisting of paste sandwiches and Christmas cake.
Old Parker, the groundsman at the hall looked after us children. It was the same children and the same presents each year.
During the war the emphasis changed and Puddletown was no longer a quiet village. A Christmas party was given in the school hall by Mr and Mrs Gaunt, the landowner’s agent and his wife. We wore fancy dress and there was a cake with pink and white icing, and paste sandwiches.
The Welsh Fusiliers were billeted in Puddletown. My grandmother had a motorcycle sergeant billeted with her. He was killed at Dunkirk.
At the beginning of the war in 1940, the Government cancelled the school holidays. We had to go to school for games, fun and reading.
Trenches were dug in Puddletown school grounds. At Hardye’s School in Dorchester, a lot of teachers had to go away to war. The replacements were often second quality. The 6th form boys were given ten days off at Christmas to work for the G.P.O. to help with the wartime Christmas deliveries.
During the war only, we were given a fortnight off for potato picking. We got paid nearly £1 for our work.
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Written by John Antell.
War comes to North Square
In the April 2005 edition of the Dorchester Parish Magazine, the Editor mentions the Kwikfit Depot in North Square and asks for suggestions of what should become of the site.
This brought back many memories to us UKing the previous use of the area, as far back as 1939 when we were both working in the offices of Voss Bros, Butchers Shop, which was located on the Kwikfit site.
The shop itself had shutters but no doors or windows, and at Christmas, turkeys, chickens, and sides of prime beef were hung outside – some of the joints had rosettes attached to indicate that the meat had come from cattle reared in Voss’ fields (which were to the northern side of Came Woods).
Stood between us in the office was a Valour Stove, with oil purchased from Mr Hult’s shop which is now a Restaurant called 6 North Square – we both recall warming our feet in cold winters by putting them in a box filled with Hay!
Next door to the premises was the Soldier’s Home where for our mid-morning break we could buy a Nelson Square, that was like a piece of bread pudding for one penny (or, as we would write it then, 1d).
Harold Swain remembers attending Bible classes from St Peter’s Church in a room above the Soldier’s Home, where Miss Taylor, the lady managing the Soldier’s Home played the harmonium when the hymns were sung.
When war was declared and the air-raid sirens sounded, all employees would go to the cellar below the shop where we had arm chairs and rugs, and our knitting to get on with. Later on when there were dog-fights overhead, we would rush out and watch the sky and then retreat to the safety of the cellars until the All Clear sounded.
We both later married airmen. Madge married Harold who was a Wireless Operator Air Gunner with the Pathfinders and Joyce married David, a Spitfire Pilot.
We also watched the soldiers arrive each day at the Home and later some evacuees with their little boxes and bags, and their labels pinned on their coats – they looked so lost and confused it seems like a different age completely.
The prison employees were also a topic of interest to us young girls, whilst we were working some of the officers cycled by daily on their way to work, which was fun for us to see.
When meat was rationed we had the job of cutting the coupons from the ration books, counting them out and taking them to the Food Office in High West Street where they were rigorously checked by serious looking clerks.
The Butchers Shop customers were so varied – some arrived in chauffeur driven big cars – we recall particularly two ladies – one was a Mrs Cave from Rowan House whose car was driven by her chauffeur, Mr Batten, who lived in Rowan Cottage, and another very important customer was Lady Marriott Smith.
The gypsies were most particular about the meat we provided for them and always insisted on the best English meat. Opposite Kwikfit (in the area now used as a car park for the Corn Exchange) there was a Saturday market and we always had to stay until Mr Cecil Voss had sold all o f his joints of meat - we remember that a large piece of topside was 2/6d (that’s about 12.5 for the younger readers) and other joints were around 2 shillings (about 10 pence).
Inside the Butchers Shop was a rarity for the times – a very large fridge and ice-maker, and on Sunday mornings ice was delivered to Hotels around the Town by Mr Voss.
There was also a house and a shop owned by the Voss family in Durngate Street, the shop was on the side now occupied by an Art Gallery, and the house (where the Voss Brothers were born in 1800s) now has two new houses built on the side.
Both shops finally closed in 1950 when the meat ration was reduced to 8d (around 3 new pence), and corned beef ration to 2d (under one new penny) per person per week.
Meat rationing then ceased in 1953 and one wonders if the business would still have occupied North Square if rationing had ended a little earlier – would Kwikfit have ever occupied the site? Who knows.
Looking back we have some really happy memories of times in North Square and in 1942 Joyce enlisted in the Women’s Royal Auxillary Air Force with another member of the staff there called Winnie Strange (now Coltart), and Madge married Harold and took over his job when he joined the Royal Air Force.
Happy days from 60+ years ago – we wonder what North Square will look like in another 60 years time?
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Written by Madge Swain and Joyce Ray.
A Purbeck man's war
I was born in 1921 at Belhuish Farm, West Lulworth, Dorset which is in a remote valley on the northern boundary of Lulworth.
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At the age of four my family moved to East Knighton, near Winfrith, where I enjoyed a happy childhood with freedom boys desire. I attended Winfrith school from the age of four and sang in the local choir from the age of ten until thirteen.
On leaving school at fourteen I worked on the farm at Winfrith Newburgh.
This continued until one day after cycling to Warmwell aerodrome and observing the activities of the R.A.F. men, I decided that this was something I would like to do. After passing my entrants exam, I joined the R.A.F. in January 1939, at the age of 17.
My first few years of service were spent in southern England. In 1941 as a member of 151 Wing, I was posted to Vaenga (Murmansk), Northern Russia. The purpose of the mission was to assist the Russians in learning to fly and maintain the Hawker Hurricanes being supplied to their Air Force.
During this period the pilots also flew as Air Defence over Murmansk and were escorts to Russian Bombers against German forces. Our pilots destroyed fifteen enemy aircraft for the loss of one Sergeant Pilot. Friendships made have continued until the present day.
After a successful mission, I returned with the rest of 151 Wing to the UK at the end of 1941.
I was stationed at Newcastle-Upon-Tyne where I met my late wife. We were married in 1942 and shared sixty one happy years together – it really was ‘From Russia with Love.’
In 1945 I was posted to Norway. Having attained the rank of Sergeant, I was demobbed in 1946.
Written by Les Burt.
Portand girl goes to war
During the war I joined the A.T.S. and was stationed in Cairo for two years.
It was there that I attended a wedding and discovered that the girl who was getting married to someone from the British Embassy was someone (Ella Taylor) who had been at St. George’s School, Portland with me.
Such a coincidence!
I also remember having to be very careful not to get sunburnt because if I had been sent to the sickbay, I would have been charged with ‘self neglect’.
When the end of the war was declared I was on duty in the Signal Office and to celebrate I and two Germans had a cup of tea.
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Written by Maggie.
Evacuees at Chickerell School
I was born at Chickerell, near Weymouth in 1938. I had one brother, Tony who was a year and 5 months older.
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We both attended the village school. At the age of 11 years I went on to further education at Weymouth Grammar School.
Whilst at Chickerell School between the years from 1943 until 1948 we were at war for part of the time with Germany.
As a result of the conflict we shared our home with 3 evacuees from Holloway, London, 2 boys and a girl. Their names were Derek, Tony and Pat.
Derek was the youngest, Tony was approximately my age and Pat a few months older than my brother. From my memories we seemed to get on well together. Their mother used to come down from London to see them whenever she could, she took up war work on the London tubes as a guard.
I remember my parents saying when the evacuees first arrived they went to bed with their shoes on because they had been sleeping like that down on the tube station platforms at night to avoid the bombing.
For many years after the war, their mother kept in touch and Pat, the daughter, also returned to visit my mother. The two boys died fairly young. Tony joined the Navy and Derek died before he was 40 years old.
We walked to school about a mile each way, we used to take a short cut across the fields and through the brickworks quarry which is now a housing estate.
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Written by M Carry (nee Dalley).
Wartime in South Dorset
I remember going to Weymouth and seeing French soldiers, who had been rescued from France on D Day, sitting along the promenade in their tin hats.
They were handing our postcards, asking passersby if they could post them back to their families in France to let them know that they were safe.
I remember the Americans camped out in Came Woods and their singing made a lovely sound. Only the black GI's were there, the others stayed elsewhere.
During the war Phyllis Mills and Eelphine Abbott put on dancing shows.
Written by Rita Goodenough.
War time farming
During the war years on my parent’s farm Near Bridport, there were tanks using the fields for manoeuvres.
We always kept a light on in the bedroom window to show them where our farm was, and stop them shelling us.
The neighbouring farm had a swimming pool in their garden, as it had no cover we always thought because they saw the reflection of the water in it it was bombed.
The nun’s house in Bridport had a shell dropped on it and so did the Bridport Hotel. One woman was blown straight up the chimney and unfortunately she was killed.
Work on the farm was done by the woman, with the help of Land Army Girls, who lodged nearby.
Some work was quite dirty, we planted and harvested the potatoes, and did haymaking. We had 40 cows, which were milked. The milk was then cooled in a cooler, taken to Powerstock Station in churns, and sent to London. We also had to care for pigs, sheep and chickens.
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Written by Margaret Childs.
Buying beer for the soldiers
When I was a little boy, the Wise Man pub in West Stafford that is there now was a shop.
It turned into the Wise Man in the early part of the war and just round the corner there was an off-licence.
In the triangle between the Woodsford Road and the Crossways Road, there was a search light there for picking up the planes and just up over the railway line there was a Beaufort gun in a pit.
When the soldiers were there, when I was a boy, about 10 or 11 years old, I used to spend quite a bit of time up there with them and they would send me to West Stafford with a little orders such as cigarettes and drink on my little ferry cycle, and there was a little old tiled shed where they would drink it.
The people who ran the off-licence moved over and took up the pub, Fred Seymour it was, and when they moved to the pub I used to go to the ‘jug and bottle’ with the soldiers’ beer order. But I never drank.
When we were nippers, we used to go and play in the barn at Lewell where they stored the corn, hay and spuds. I remember the barn being 6 or 8ft high in spuds during the war!
The worst thing I remember about the war was Battle of Britain Sunday when they bombed a lot, and occasionally a couple of bombers coming over in the morning.
Eight o’clock in the morning and dropping bombs. We used to hear the drone of aeroplanes going over and say 'Mum, is that a jerry?'
We never had to go to the air raid shelter, but people did dig holes and shelters to get into.
Then there were the Morrison shelters, made of cast iron, I think, that you had in your house. We had odd bombs dropped around and we nippers used to go and collect shrapnel.
If a plane came down we used to go up to get scrap off it, if you could get hold of Spitfire glass and make a ring from it, you were alright!
We used to burn a hole in the glass and then sand paper it until you had a ring. But usually someone would get there before us and keep us away. We used to keep odd bits that we’d found in a box – shrapnel and that.
I can remember when some bombs dropped just near the railway line near West Knighton woods on the Saturday night and killed some sheep. Two bombs up by Lewell Lodge and in the meadows and up at Frome Hill – I suppose they were dropping them on their way home.
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Written by Peter Steele.