There was three taps on the kitchen sink?.
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’Oh aye, there was a big rain water tank up above the bathroom
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in the loft. There was a wash house outside with a big set pot.
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There was two garages down below. They used to have stables and that where you used to have horses and traps, probably used to have horses and traps, the doctor.’
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’I joined in ‘41, back end and I came back on my first leave. We used to get a weekend off now and again and I used to come back to School Square. And then I went down South and that’s when they moved over. The first leave I had when they were down in Sussex, I came back to the big house. Used to have my rifle and that in the corner, in the big sitting room.’
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The Black Market
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’If you had the money you got it. Somebody would get it for you. It was the same in Germany, they were exactly the same over there. Rackets, the black market.’
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Were cigarettes rationed?
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’They were bad to get. We used to see them coming down the street shouting during the war: “There’s cigarettes in the paper shop!” Everybody’s’ away down!’
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Did the pubs ever run out of beer?
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’They used used to close. No beer.’
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Did that ever happen while you were inside having a drink?
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’Oh, aye. But there was always one or two open. Camerons, or different brewers. You used to get to know when they were coming and the landlords used to say: “Get down on Thursday night, we’re getting the beer in!”. Different pubs. You could always get a drink somewhere.’
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The Americans
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’It was before I went away. I knew when they were up here. Before I went abroad. I didn’t go abroad until 1942. Why, they were in the war then. Aye, we used to come up on leave. They were up the Half Way House, there was something up there. An ack-ack gun or a searchlight.
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’But that was Johnny Currie and them. They went down to a dance at the Welfare. I wasn’t here, but apparently there was trouble started and they got beaten up--some of them. We had a couple of leaves from Winchelsea. That was in ‘42.’
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My father’s story continues with his recollections of the day that war was declared in 1939.
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See the link at the bottom of the page to continue reading
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The interview transcription you have been reading is drawn from a series of very informal taped interviews I did with my father in 1995. I subsequently discovered that his old DLI Battalion, the 16th, with the subject of an extensive oral history recording project by the Imperial War Museum, which began in 1987 and ran through to circa 2004 and which now comprises circa 30-plus very long interviews.
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To cut a long story short, I donated my interview to their collection and also then interviewed at great length several other DLI veterans for the IWM Sound Archive project myself, between 1999 and 2004.
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The interview with my father can be listened to freely online here, though the sound quality is much less than desired.:
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I also interviewed Mrs Mary Shutt, nee Baldersera, for the IWM in 2002--with much better recording equipment! Her interview can be listened to here.
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Mary’s husband, Syd Shutt, also served in 16 DLI. His IWM interview, conducted by Harry Moses in 1997, can be listened to here.
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All of these interviews are now priceless, as indeed are all of the the IWM’s DLI interview collection. All the interviews have detailed content summaries provided by the IWM and the three cited above include some great memories of Thornley in that now faraway time between the wars.
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NEXT: Called Up andin the Colliery Inn
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OLD THORNLEY HOME
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