Yeovil at war
Yeovil at war
The wartime Yeovil recollections of Peter Jones
In August 1944 I was evacuated to 5 Westpark Yeovil in Sommerset. I stayed in a large house with five other boys who had been evacuated - Daniel Dembey, Keith Gardiner, Gerald Moors, Roy Airs, John Marshall, and Fred Mangalow. We were all about 12 or 13 at the time. The lady of the house was called Aunty.
We, like everyone else in the Essex area, had been evacuated because of the buzz bombs. These bombs were planes that did not have a pilot. As soon as the engine stopped, they would fall from the sky and do a lot of damage.
When the war ended on May 8 1945 there was a big celebration at Ham Hill Yeovil. There was tea, cake, sweets, toffee apples.
On May 14th 1944 there was a street party at Shepton Mallet in Sommerset. A coach took myself and the boys that I was living with. We had a good sing song about the war years on the way.
It was a glorious sunny day for the celebration. We were given two shillings pocket money. This was a lot of money given that you could buy a choc ice for a penny. We bought saving stamps with the pocket money. As I stood in the queue, I remember singing, "Saving, saving, saving to win the war. Whenever you have saved enough, go on and save some more".
Reproduced from the BBC's "WW2 People's War" under the 'fair dealing' terms.
