MEMORIES
Maiden Newton Home Guard – An account by Jack Hull
Maiden Newton, like many Dorset villages had its own Home Guard Unit. It was under the command of Col. Barnes who lived in Maiden Newton House. There were many members of the unit some of whom are listed below:
Vic Mearnes, Morris Harvey, Jack Parfit, Hounsel, Jack Hull, Brian Crocker, Reg Cheyney, Harold Carver, Jack Goff, Reg Edmonds, Fred Harding, Col. Barnes, Flemming, Pope, Raymond Viner, Archie Parsons, Slemmic, Tom Cockrain, Jack Welch, Bill Coombes, Army Neil, Charlie Woodland, Fred Hull and Bill Hull.
Jack, Tom Cochrain, Fred Harding and Canon Slemmick’s son were on patrol along the Roman Road the night that Weymouth was bombed. They had a small wooden shed as their shelter with some straw on the floor as a makeshift bed so that they could take it in turns to get some sleep. “We had one pick axe handle, a twelve bore and one rifle, that was the LDV then, before the Home Guard”. The screaming noise of the bombs “made your blood run cold”. They were taking it in turn to sleep and would have two hours on and four off. The hut was on the Roman Road just past Compton Vallance on the right. Jack remembers that “when the bombs were screaming down the language from the Parsons son was something to hear. The noise, even at that sort of distance, scared you half to death”.
One bomb dropped over Back Lane, probably while they were on their way back, and a couple fell onto farmer Pike’s land on the same night. “I had been ploughing in the field that was bombed and when I went back the tractor was covered in mud. The bomb fell about 40 yards from where the tractor was. This was along Back Lane in Hayward’s field on the right. I also found a fire bomb on the hill that I thought was a dead chicken at first. It had landed about 20 yards from Crocker’s house”. He was not aware of any other damage but had heard that some bullets hit the Church but he was not sure where.
His wife was once scared by a German plane that flew so low over the village she could see the pilot inside. She ran and hid in the house.
When they were training with the regulars an aircraft would fly over and drop bags of flour on them which would keep them on their toes. “The RAF was pretty good because if the bombs had been real we would have been blown all to hell. They also used to make us run over barbed wire, a bloke would run up to the wire and fall onto it, and then the rest of us would run over him. I never had to fall on the wire but they seemed to be all right and got away with just a few nasty pricks. We did this in Squires’ field near where the Spigot Mortar site is. I never knew that the site was there as we had our own spigot mortar on four legs. It must have been used by the regulars. We would go to Bovington to do our training with it and fire at some tanks. They would have a bit of fun with you and drive right at you and at the last minute would swing round and cover you with bloomin’ sand and mud! We had 20lb and 14lb bombs for our spigot mortar. I was one of the team with Reg Edmonds, Jack Welch and Bill Coombes when we went to Bovington”.
As well as the spigot mortar the Home Guard were issued with a Vickers machine gun and five rounds each for their 303 rifles. “I had to go over to the firing range in Sydling with Slemmick to practice with the Vickers, it wasn’t my main job but a couple of times they were short so I went along. The Sgt. from Dorchester would train us, I hadn’t used it before so I sighted it by firing one or two bullets then I was going to sight it again. Blimy, didn’t he cuss and holler at me, don’t mess about with it get on and shoot the damned thing. Well, I didn’t know did I? It was the first time that I had used it. It wasn’t very accurate any way, bloody dangerous thing”.
“Once we had to guard the railway tunnel at Ridgeway but more often we would be in Dorchester on duty at Greys Bridge. We were there a few days before ‘D Day’; the Yanks were pouring down to Weymouth all day and all night. D Day was a bloody wet, miserable cold day. People didn’t really know much about it until after the event. Nobody would tell you much but life just seemed to go on as best it could, much as it had before the war really. People just looked out for one another and were really happy. Not like it is now. I suppose that’s what a war does for you. It’s a bit like Wooten Basset now with those poor fellas coming back from Afganistan. It’s a real shame that those young fellas are going over there and I’m not sure what we can do about it. How do you win a war like that?”
Jack can remember the Flame Fougasse just above Gypsies Pit on Greenford Hill. “Muggins here and Tom Cockraine had to set the bloomin thing off. We had to hide down by the bridge where we had the detonator, you know with the plunger on the top. I said to Tom that we would have to run like hell ‘cause we would be picked off or blown up with it. It was two 40 gallon drums full of petrol and stuff. We didn’t build them and didn’t really know what they were ‘til afterwards. I guess that they just rotted in the ground. All we knew was that if the tanks or Lorries came by then we had to wait for so many, then press the old do dah, well that was Tom’s job, I was really the look out. It would have been horrible if it went off and hit you ‘cause it would stick to your clothes and stuff”.
They would train with the regulars and used to like attacking the Americans. One night they had to find the GIs and set off over the hills. They soon found them as they were always very noisy. They had hidden in Combe Barn so they waited for them to settle down before waking them up with a few thunder flashes.
“We didn’t know anything about the Auxiliaries or other units. Jo Yates, Ron Valace and his brother were in it, they had some kind of underground shelter or something, but they never told us about it. We used to drink and play darts together but they never let on until after the War”.
Jack can remember that for entertainment they would go to dances where Bill Elliott and Jack Chubb had a little band, Jack would be the singer. They would also go to whist drives.
The Hull family were keen boxers, not for fun but for money. They were trained by Harry Nobbs and would go to the boxing booths at the local fairs in Bridport, Sherborne, Shaftesbury, Yeovil or Glastonbury. They could earn more in one night boxing than they normally would in a week, or a month, on the farm. Bill was particularly tough and would often take on the Americans, in one unofficial bout in the village he knocked out seven US troops before it was brought to a halt!
In general Jack enjoyed the 1940s. He was a young man having a good time and there was plenty of food in the country but he did feel sorry for those in the towns where life was much tougher and food was in short supply.
Notes of an informal interview and village walkabout with Hans Wells-Furby 12th Feb 2011.
Notes taken by Andy Elliott with Ian Hambidge present.
We met on a fine sunny day in February at the Fire Station in Bull Lane and looked at some old maps, and photographs that we had each brought with us. We then walked around the village to look at the locations of various military installations. This served as a great prompt for Hans, bringing back many memories of his time in Maiden Newton during the war. He moved here at the start of WW2, living briefly at Higher Frome before moving to 25 Dorchester Road. Our route took us down bull Lane, over Dorchester Road into Frome Lane then along the footpath from Black Bridge to Search light Field via Riverside Cottage. We then continued along Back Lane to Tollerford, down Dorchester Road and back to Bull Lane, pausing for refreshments in the Coffee Shop at the Newsagents.
These notes are in no particular order, but then neither was our conversation which was a morning of interesting ramblings between three men with a common interest.
Hans mentioned that there used to be a makeshift air raid shelter dug into the hedge bank at the junction of Chilfrome Lane and Dorchester Road. This was used by the residents of Whitehall. I can remember rubble in this area because a gate was placed at the same spot. This gave access to what, later, became the sports field for the Village school. Later still this junction was widened and Greenford School now stands in the field.
The search light field had only one search light and that worked in tandem with another stationed further down the valley towards Dorchester. They would attempt to catch the aircraft in their joint beams to enable identification and provide early warning for towns such as Yeovil and Bristol of the approaching enemy. It is thought that these lights were also used as beacons to guide returning aircraft safely back to their bases. Hans remembered walking his dog along the lane and peering through the hedge to see the soldiers going through their practice drills. Search Light Field contained a range of buildings including; a sentry box at the gate on Back Lane, a coal bunker on the side of the lane, a couple of sleeping huts along the Back Lane hedge and along the hedge from the lane to Skips field was the ablutions block, the cook house and the Sgt’s quarters.
An ‘anti-tank’ ditch ran from the bridge at Tollerford north-west to join a line of anti-tank obstacles known locally as ‘Dragons Teeth’. This ditch was filled in soon after the war and the entire field was re-profiled.
Hans described a Spigot Mortar’ site and indicated that it would have been in the garden of what is now 19 Dorchester Road. He described the concrete drum with its spigot to mount the mortar, probably a Blacker-bombardier. One of the spigot mortars was kept in the stable at Chalk Newton House and would be moved around the village in a wheelbarrow by the Home Guard. He also remembers the low, brick built walls to provide simple refuge from enemy fire. This spigot mortar would have had a very good clear view of an enemy advancing over the meadows or along Frome Lane from Black Bridge.
Over these same meadows Hans described a steel pipe that was laid by the Americans. It took a route from the side of Black Bridge directly over the meadows to Dorchester Road, which it crossed, and passed up the lane alongside Turkey Cottage into ‘the Dump’ also known as Camp Field. This was the site of the American Quartermasters Stores and the purpose of the pipe was to provide an emergency water supply in the event of fire. It was used to fill a circular dam which could be accessed by fire fighting equipment in the event of fire. Hans recalls at least one large fire on the camp during the American occupation.
The village Air Raid Siren was located by the road outside of the Police House (4 Dorchester Road). This would have been operated by the Police Constable, PC Broadwey, or his wife if he were out patrolling on his bicycle.
Ernest Wells-Furby worked at Rampisham Down Transmitting Station for the BBC. They would transmit the world service to Asia by day and Canada by night. It was this work that brought the family to Maiden Newton. He also helped at the nearby American Forces Network (AFN) that was stationed in military buildings at Kingcombe Cross. These buildings have only recently been demolished to make way for a waste transfer station.
U.S. Anti Aircraft units exercised at Higher Frome in fields that are now occupied by post war bungalows.
The U.S. First Division (the ‘Big Red One’) were stationed all around West Dorset. They had just returned from Italy when then came to Maiden Newton. They were an unruly bunch with stories of both Officers and men, getting involved in drink related bad behaviour and petty theft of garden produce. They were eventually sent up to the Camp at Warden Hill. Sgt. O’Brian was one of the key figures that Hans remembers.
Hans recalls one afternoon when he was sitting in the Castle Inn with his parents; he would have been a young teenager at this point. He was given a half pint of rough Cider to sip while he was there. The Castle Inn was one of two Beer Houses in the village, the other being the Brewery (now the Chalk and Cheese). These pubs only had a public bar but would sometimes open up the residential parts of the house to provide a more comfortable experience. These beer houses would normally provide beer but would often be short of that commodity due to the weight of demand by the American forces. The family were sitting in this part of the house and Hans recalls a very large American soldier filling a large, comfortable, arm chair pointing at Hans and calling out “No wonder they can drink so much of this stuff if they start them that young!”
Sylvia Townsend Warner writes in her wartime letters of U.S. troops playing baseball in the field behind her house, this is the two acre field just off Frome Lane on the Maiden Newton side of the river.
There were many rumours of ‘loose women’ during the war, particularly when the village was full of Americans. Some were allegedly looser than others; one home would regularly have jeeps outside and the occupant became known locally as 10/- Annie (10 bob Annie)!
Military buildings sprung up all over the village and were in the most part of two basic designs. The dairy and Search Light Field had wooden huts whereas Chilfrome Lane and Bull lane had tin Nissen huts.
A supply of temporary road blocks was kept in Church Road. These were concrete cylinders, perhaps cast into 45 gallon drums, with a steel girder passing through them. They could be rolled into place when needed. A large number of these were stacked under the wall of the Old Rectory between the War Memorial and the Church. After the War these were re-cycled and can still be seen at Sydling where they were used to form the bank revetments alongside the ford.
Towards the end of the war a unit of U.S. Military Police were stationed in the village. They had a particularly unpleasant Sgt. Amongst their ranks and he was universally hated. A rumour persist that during a landing craft training exercise at Lulworth he was deliberately ‘lost’. The story goes that the unit were practicing beach landings at, or close to, Lulworth. As the craft approached the beach a lookout would keep an eye on the depth of water and would repeatedly shout “deep, deep, deep” until the water was sufficiently shallow to disembark when he would shout “go”. On this occasion the hated Sgt. Was at the head of the queue ready to lead his men into battle. The lookout was calling out the depth “deep, deep, deep” then shouted “GO”. Only the Sgt. leapt from the craft into what was still very deep water. Fully kitted he stood no chance, sank to the bottom and drowned. They completed their training and he was reported as ‘Lost on exercise’.
The Home Guard were used for many duties and would often head off to guard the railway tunnels at night. Presumably, this was to prevent enemy saboteurs from planting explosives in the tunnels to disrupt the railway network.
Maiden Newton Home Guard in the grounds of Maiden Newton House, the home of Col. Barnes, centre of seated rank.
Maiden Newton had its own Royal Observer Corps lookout post, though it was located just over the Parish boundary in Cattistock. During the war this team was led by Bill Elliott and some of the team members were, two Hatcher brothers from Cattistock, Joe Davey, Dickie Bird - who traveled by train from Abbotsbury, Ernest Wells-Furby and one of the Denty’s.
Running along the hedge between Skip’s field and the Search Light field, on Skips side, was a triple coil of barbed wire, two coils at the base with a third on top. The same arrangement was also to be found in other places around the village including the fields at Higher Frome. Several of these fields were used by Pop Squires and he often complained about the space they occupied, taking up valuable grazing.
Staff at the Great Western Railway station included Messers Parfitt and Simms.
The Royal Canadian Corps of Signals spent some time in Maiden Newton towards the end of 1943. Their task was to lay communication lines, mostly along the railway track. One of the 100 strong contingent was called Curry and he was befriended by the Wells-Furby’s. He arranged a Sunday ride in a Jeep for the young Hans. The Canadians were billeted in the Nissen Huts in Chilfrome Lane during their stay.
The huts in Chilfrome Lane were built by the Pioneer Corps early in the war. These troops contained Polish and Jews amongst their number.
The regular army would use the village to practice ‘street fighting’. It was not uncommon during the week to step out of a shop to be confronted with a soldier lying on the pavement with a Bren Gun pointing down the street or another running from behind the White Horse throwing thunder flashes ! Hans recalled one particular exercise involving both regular army units and the home guard. The exercise was an invasion repulsion affair and he and other children were supposed to be located in the mill (or dairy?) acting as casualties. However they soon became bored and decided to leave their posts in order to watch the action around the village.
A Heavy Artillery Unit was stationed in the village for a time with the guns in Chilfrome Lane. They were under the command of Maj. Corsallis.
The Officers Mess and billet was in part of the Old Rectory (now Maiden Newton House) in Church Road.
One of the Scott’s regiments was locally famed for their ability to drink in huge quantities. Dray day (when the beer was delivered) for the four pubs, the Castle Inn, Brewery, White Horse and the Railway was Thursday. It was not uncommon for all of the beer to have been consumed by the end of Saturday night leaving only Cider for the rest of the week.
Maiden Newton was one of the first villages to get an ‘automatic’ telephone exchange. This building still exists in Bull Lane and was operational even before the much larger town of Dorchester became automated. The reason for this was the presence of the military and the fact that the post mistress could not keep up with the large number of calls on her manual switch board.
The Home Guard included a number of veterans from the Great War. There a standing joke in the village that there was a decided lack of legs amongst the NCO’s, both Sgt. Jack Goff and his corporal had wooden legs, as did two others. All of these men had lost their limbs in the trenches of WW1 but were still prepared to defend their country for a second time if necessary.
There are stories of military vehicles being ‘lost’, only to be found after the war, often in the barns of local farmers! It is thought that this may have been in return for the kindness extended by the local families towards the Americans. It is known that many items of equipment were left behind when the Americans disappeared over night for the ‘D-Day’ landings. The local Scout troop benefited from some of the smaller tents and Pop Squires claimed a trailer that was left in Chilfrome lane. This trailer saw many years service on the farm as a hay cart and outlasted both Pop and Skip Squires.
The Americans were also generous with their rations, so much so that the queues at the QM stores were often longer than those at the village shops! His family were asked to billet an American officer who in civilian life was a lecturer at a university (Wisconsin?) in the USA. The brief to the family was that this officer had to sleep during the day due to having to work nights. The story went that in fact this officer was so perturbed by the rations that were going to locals during the night (queues would form) that he personally oversaw the area during the night in an effort to reduce the trafficking of rations and supplies. On one occasion Han’s father saw a man carrying a very nice new axe and asked about it as one normally had to get them made or purchased through the hardware store. The reply came back that “an American serviceman had put it down so I picked it up”.
Maiden Newton Auxiliary Unit – An account by Ron Vallis
The Maiden Newton Auxiliary Unit was a small secretive bunch of men who were trained to evade capture and disrupt an invading enemy as best they could. A great deal of their training involved explosives with the aim of causing maximum disruption to the progress of an advancing enemy.
Members of the unit taken from the Dorset nominal roll included:
G A Grover DoB 24/6/14 Manor Farm Cotts, Higher Kingcombe, Maiden Newton
Frank Greening DoB 23/11/04 Barrowlands Farm, Toller, Dorchester
Ron E Vallis DoB 29/7/23 Toller Fratrum, Dorchester
Chris S Vallis DoB 25/9/15 Toller Fratrum, Dorchester
Cyril J Wallbridge DoB 24/11/07 Higher Kingcombe, Maiden Newton
S Eddie Wrixon DoB 11/5/19 Higher Kingcombe, Maiden Newton
Ron also recalls a number of other names including, Coombes, Stan Turner, Vines, Johnson and Jack Legg.
You will notice that most of these men in fact lived in and around the Tollers and Kingcombe, but their task was to disrupt activity in the Village of Maiden Newton which would have become an important Railhead for an invading Army.
Their shelter was located just south of the A356 in an old chalk pit. Seven people were able to sleep in hammocks at any one time in a room about 20’ long. Access to the hide was via a trapdoor that was activated by pulling on a wire hidden in a bush. The door would swing open to reveal a set of brick built steps leading down into the hide cut into the side of the chalk pit. Their explosives; gelignite, incendiaries and grenades were stored along the sides of these entrance steps which led down to an underground Nissen hut. These hides were known as OBs (Observation Bunkers). Ron is aware of the location of two others that they could use if they needed to move on, one at Beaminster and another near Stratton.
Their HQ was at Duntish Court and they would all go over on a Sunday morning for “beer and training”. Duntish Court was run by “Lt. Weaver and a bunch of Red Caps”. They would all train in the stables and out buildings. As far as Ron knows all of the staff at Duntish Court had escaped from France. Their cover for traveling on a Sunday was that they were delivering coal, this was necessary as nobody was to know about their secretive work. Ron was aware that their French counterparts, the Resistance, were trained in Scotland.
Capt. Gaunt was in charge of their Unit and would occasionally take them for a drink at the Spyway Inn. Ron recalls that the landlady was very strict and would only let them have 1 ½ pints of beer. He was visited at home by Capt. Gaunt on 5th June 1944, the day before ‘D Day’. Capt Gaunt informed him that he would be collected by staff car the following day and that he should then collect Eddie Wrixon and that they would be taken away for active duty. The next day he was working in the fields “picking tiddies” as usual when the staff car arrived. The driver escorted him to his home where he acted like an officers ‘batman’ and helped Ron to dress in his uniform, giving him a shave in the process. They then collected Eddie and set off. Their journey took them deep into the Purbecks, past Corfe and onto the hills overlooking Poole to an artillery base. The base was covered in camouflage netting and they were allocated a billet in a tent. They were there for eight days and were tasked with guarding a door into the hillside. He never knew what was behind the door and never felt that he could ask. All that they ever saw was the Hospital Ships going to and fro along the coast. On the last day he was instructed to present himself to a Red Cap Officer who paid him eight days Army pay. They were then collected and taken to Corfe where they were given a meal in the pub. The best bit was that his boss on the farm also gave him his full pay for the week!
His main role within the Auxiliaries was as an explosives expert and his task was to destroy as many bridges as he could before being captured. On one occasion he was sent to Wimborne for an exercise. They were dropped off in a field of kale with the instruction to reach a convoy of vehicles and to ‘mark them’ to indicate that they had been blown up, a task that was successfully achieved.
They also attacked RAF Warmwell from Duck Farm. They had to cross a number of water-meadows, through the quarries and onto the Warmwell airfield. Again they had to ‘mark’ the aeroplanes, which they did, but were eventually caught in the search lights. Upon capture they were given a meal and returned home. All of their training took place at night except for the Sunday sessions at Duntish Court. They also never visited their OB during the day and made every effort to approach it from different directions in order that they would not create a track. Ron recalls one occasion when he was stopped by PC Dunford in the middle of the night at White Gate on his way home. He had to lie his way out of a tight spot!
Their OB was equipped with churns of water and food for 3 weeks. They were issued with a Service Revolver each and the OB had one .22 rifle with telescopic sights (Ron recalls that this was for shooting rabbits as food, but this has been challenged by others who claim that it had a more sinister use), two rifles, one ‘Tommy Gun’ and two ‘Sten Guns’. Each of them had the option to buy a ‘Fairburn Sykes’ fighting knife which they mostly did. The Auxiliaries would fuse their own grenades when needed and could set the fuses to detonate after either 2 seconds or 7 seconds. They also had lead delays which could be set to go off up to two days later. The detonators came in tins of 15 per tin. Ron was told that the OB was kitted for three weeks because if they hadn’t got ‘Jerry’ out by then the war was probably lost.
He can’t remember a great deal about the other defences or the Home Guard other than the Auxiliaries were paid but the Home Guard were not. He can also remember that a gun was stationed in Higher 20 Acres which was then moved down into Little Toller along with the search light.
Ron had a medical prior to being accepted at the WI hall in High West Street, Dorchester. He then had to see a Red Cap who told him that he would be sent away for six weeks training before being posted to his unit. He was told by Lt Weaver that as an Auxiliary he was now in a reserved occupation and would never be called up into the Regular Army. This was also one of the reasons that many of the Auxiliaries were farmers as they were also exempt from being called up so it would not be seen as unusual. However, “on one occasion a close friend, Clunie Mearns, defended them by taking on a number of ‘Yanks’ who had been insulting the non-uniformed locals”.
After the war Ron is not sure what happened to the hide and the equipment in it. He only returned once and took two grenades as souvenirs, only one had a detonator. He decided to try this out and went to the river with Roland Elliott. They threw it into a deep pool to see what would happen. After the explosion a lot of trout floated to the surface of the pool which Roland jumped into and scooped up as many as he could. He buried his last grenade in the hedge behind the outside loo of his cottage.
For more information on the Auxiliary Units in the UK visit www.auxunit.org.uk or www.coleshillhouse.com
My Wartime Memories by Harry Grenville - Arbeitslager 295
Some older residents may remember the area between the church and the railway line at Cattistock. This was an encampment of Nissen huts from early in the war until well into the late 1940's. From the look of the bungalows now occupying the site it seems as if the residential use dates from some time in the 1950's. Early occupants of the camp, as far as I can piece together, included a detachment of the Royal Sussex, an anti-aircraft battery, US troops waiting to embark for D-Day and an Italian Prisoner of War camp. When I came to the scene in September 1946 Germans had taken the place of the Italians and Cattistock camp served as headquarters for a number of subsidiary camps scattered all over the county as well as over 150 individual Germans billeted directly on farms. The purpose of No.295 PoW camp was to supply agricultural labour at a time when the bulk of our own agricultural workers had not yet been released from H.M. Forces. To the Germans it was an Arbeitslager, a work camp. The story goes that when it was opened the incoming Commanding Officer was given the choice of Cattistock and a rather more convenient site at Charminster with better road communications to the satellite camps. The Colonel chose Cattistock because the fishing was better.
The sub-camps, known as hostels, each containing between 25 and over 150 prisoners were run by NCOs, anything between a lance corporal for the tiny hostel on the hilltop between Piddletrenthide and Cerne Abbas to a senior warrant officer for Beaminster 1 and 11, situated in the grounds of Parnham House when it was pretty well derelict. When I have visited Parnham since then I have often looked for traces of the foundation of the Nissen huts but the demolition people must have done the job very well. Other hostels were a large one on Bradford down and one right in the middle of Martinstown. This was quite popular with the local population because the Germans used to lay on musical entertainments and play at village dances. Two more small hostels were at Godmanstone and the charming Yellowham Wood encampment not far from the A35 but it might as well have been in the Forest of Arden so completely was it surrounded by magnificent oaks and limes. The two remote hostels were Longburton, almost on top of Sherborne, and Burton Bradstock much sought after by Germans because you could go for a swim after work. Some enthusiasts kept this up right through the winter. I shall have more to say about the 1946/47 winter!
By late 1946 security was not taken seriously. The wartime barbed wire had been replaced by a token wire, a single strand of barbed wire about 4 inches from the ground which one simply stepped over. At first the Germans were restricted in various ways; they were forbidden "to consort with female persons, to use public transport and to enter licensed premises" in the portentous language of the War Office Prisoner of War Directorate. One by one these regulations were overtaken by events.
One group from Cattistock were taken by truck each morning to work for the County Council on the sewage scheme at Upwey. If one of them reported sick in the morning and was subsequently declared fit for work we could only get him to his gang by putting him on a train at Cattistock Halt bound for Upwey. Nobody could tell a Dorset farmer what to do, so if he wanted to take his Germans to the pub after work there was none to say no. Finally, when a Watford parish priest, in ignorance of War Office rules, married a German PoW to a north London "female person" that prohibition looked a bit deflated. We had a role call each evening at Cattistock and at the hostels, a rather relaxed affair, but we did discover an absentee one dark evening. He turned up sometime later, having walked to the top of the hill on the Frampton side of Maiden Newton to look at the street lights of Dorchester. He said he had not seen a town with the lights on for some years and he just felt like taking a look. British personnel at Cattistock belonged to a company of the Pioneer Corps and were not really top notch front-line troops, to put it kindly. Some thought it their patriotic duty to wander around of an evening to see if they could spot, and then report, a PoW in the company of a female person. In such cases the German was wheeled in before the Commandant and charged with an offence against paragraph 39 of King's Regulations as applied to prisoners of war. This was the portmanteau formula about "good order and military discipline". However good his English might be, the Geneva Convention demanded that the charge and all proceedings should be translated, so I often found myself mouthing my standard German phases and the reverse for all the individual's defence. Theft was taken very seriously and always resulted in at least a week's detention.
The post-war Labour Government was anxious to promotes a policy of demilitarisation not only in the British zone of occupation in what has now become North-Rhine-westphalia but also in the minds of individual Germans and this included prisoners of war. One of the curious results
Of this was the abolition of military ranks in everyday usage. Thus the senior German, known s the camp leader was not Hauptfeldwebel Schultz but Herr Schultz and so on right down the line. Despite my best efforts I could not reverse the process: all the clerks in my interpreter's office insisted on addressing me as Herr Leutnant and when in due course I required a second pip on my shoulder, as Herr Oberleutnant.
The PoW directorate at the War Office put a great effort into political re-education. This took several forms. One was the publication and wide distribution of a booklet called Leitfaden zur Staatsbuergerkunde (Guide to Citizenship.) I still have a copy and it is pretty heavy going -very earnest. The wonder is that any PoWs actually read it. But they did. I think they were beginning to realise that they had been brain washed and many genuinely wanted to find out more about how western democracies worked. Some of the older ones could remember the Weimar republic and wanted to refresh their memories. Another thread in the re-education tapestry was Wilton Park, a country house in Berkshire run by the Foreign office. Here selected PoW's attended 4-week courses to equip them with the intellectual resources to lead the re-education effort in the camps. I hit upon an excellent choice ( perhaps influenced by some of the senior people in the camp leader's circle ) by sending a bright young man called fritz Berndt who came back full of ideas. He started courses in political education at Cattistock and in the hostels and edited a very good monthly magazine called Aufbau ( roughly translated as reconstruction.) I still have some copies and marvel at the effort that must have gone into typing up 25 pages every month and turning out probably 100- 150 copies on a creaky old Gestetner. There were worthy articles on politics, history, philosophy but also reviews of concerts and plays put on by the hostels, crossword puzzles and descriptions of some of the day-to-day activities at Cattistock such as the bakery staffed by the Germans or the workshop which kept the Army trucks running between the hostels. I remember one of the miscellaneous puzzles; "I don't disagree with the opponents of anti-vegetarianism." Q. Does he eat meat?
The third strand in the re-education programme was the provision of outside lectures. This was done by the Foreign Office department run by an off-the-scale attractive young woman called Miss Stern whom I met once or twice in London. She sent MP's, trade unionists, business people and even a Swiss secondary school teacher to explain the Swiss system of government. Many of the speakers were fluent enough in German, some I interpreted for and some carried on just in English in the hope that they would be understood. A lively interest was taken in English classes. Some were run by the linguists among the Germans themselves and some by an education Corps sergeant from Dorchester Barracks who thought that a good way of teaching English was to explain the finer points of cricket. It worked too!
The Foreign Office also undertook to attach political gradings to PoW's. A civil servant called Mr. Bloxham occasionally visited and conducted 10-15 minute interviews in which he tried to assess the extent to which an individual had been affected by Nazi-ism. There were certain organisations which were pretty harmless such as the overall trade union with which the Nazi's
had replaced individual unions. Almost everyone belonged to this. If you were a member of the Waffen-SS your date of joining was important. After some time in 1944 they took
Conscripts, before that only volunteers, so you had to be pretty committed and that counted against you.
There was an element of bluff in all this: we had to pretend that we had everybody's complete record of service which would be checked. Mr Bloxham was good at detecting liars and he insisted that I sat in on interviews and eventually conducted some of my own. At one point he said that I could finish the process on my own and he wouldn't need to come again. I protested that I needed some more formal training but apparently this system of apprenticeship was the norm. In fact I was sent off to do 250 interviews in a German working company attached to the Armoured Corps at Lulworth. Their Officer's Mess was in a different world to our little Cattistock establishment in terms of comfort, so I quite enjoyed my 3 weekends there. The political gradings were B+, B, and B- for the politically neutral of various hues, by far the majority. They were repatriated strictly in order of date of capture. A+ and A were people who were judged to be "reliable, potentially democratic, persons" who could be expected to take a leading part in the reconstruction of the eventual German state. They received some priority in date of repatriation. Cs were unrepentant Nazis who were isolated in a camp in Caithness and subjected to intensive counter propaganda. I discovered two Cs at Lulworth and duly had them transferred. They turned out to be Yugoslavs, probably Croats, which makes recent events in the Balkans more easily understood. Just before the camp closed down a procedure called civilianisation made its appearance. This resulted in PoWs who could show that they had paid employment and somewhere to live and did not want to be repatriated to be released in this country. The bureaucracy was quite horrendous; one of the German clerks and I would literally
be filling in forms for an entire day: Home Office Aliens Department, Police, Ministry of Labour and our own dear War Office to name but a few.
The main logistical problem at Cattistock was to keep in touch with the hostels. A small fleet of Bedford 3- tonners, driven by PoWs distributed rations, fuel, blankets, furniture and transferred prisoners from hostel to hostel when necessary or working parties at farms. Sick parade could only be at Cattistock where there was a little camp hospital and a German doctor. You would have to be very ill indeed to be spared a journey to Cattistock in the back of a 3- tonner. No wonder the health record was good. I had to visit each hostel at least once a week and individual billetees on farms once a month to act as a kind of welfare officer in case there were any problems.
There often were, in particular former inhabitants of Russian occupation zone that had difficulty hearing from their families and could not send food parcels at all. An offshoot of the NAFFI ran a sort of camp canteen where tobacco could be bought, also strictly rationed chocolate, tins of Nescafe (valuable currency in post-war Germany), shoe polish ( ditto )and many other goods. The currency was "camp money ", rather crudely printed vouchers for various sums. I had to carry supplies of this paper money to the hostels and billetee's because of course the Geneva Convention demands that prisoners of war must be paid for any civilian work they do. My transport was a 350cc army Matchless motor bike because I could not hang around about waiting for the ration truck to unload or to keep it waiting for me. In 1946/47 this was far from funny. Some will remember that snow was a severe problem from mid- January to well into March. On many occasions I carried a shovel on the back of the bike to dig out snowdrifts. Our relations with the great Western Railway were very good; they had to be because Maiden Newton station was the arrival point for sometimes quite large contingents of PoWs from other camps which were closing down and other groups traveled to base camps in readiness for repatriation. Incidentally, all these movement orders came in the post, signed by J.W.Hackett Lt. Col., G.S.O.111, South West District Taunton. He was to become General Sir John Hackett, Chief of the Defence Staff.
Nowadays I sometimes wonder about the Geneva Convention. It is quite clear that repatriation of prisoners of war should be undertaken as soon as possible after the signing of a peace treaty between the former belligerents. No such treaty has ever been signed because there was no such thing as a German state at the end of the war and when eventually there were two the Russians would not sign while West Germany existed. Strictly, therefore, we could have kept the PoWs indefinitely. Most of them would by now be even more elderly gentlemen than I am.
Bobs memories of World War II
Bob was born in 1924, the family lived in a dwelling on Cattistock Hill, only the remains still exist. The family moved to Maiden Newton when Bob was six years old. The family lived at 7 Cattistock Road and kept geese and chickens in a field opposite their home. This is currently the area occupied by the bus shelter and an area in front of the flats of Webbers Piece. Bob attended the village school and recalls the children tending gardens in what is now Canon's Gardens. There were woodwork lessons for boys in Cromwell Hall, which is now a private residence. The girls had cookery lessons in the old village hall. Bob left school at 14 years old and went to work for Cox and Hill who were builders, their number of employees dwindled because of the war, so Bob also worked with Bob Nobbs whose father F.W.Nobbs was an undertaker.
There were dances at the old milk factory, in the large cheese room on the first floor. Dances were also held at that time in the village hall, which was the area above the current hardware shop. Bob was in the church choir, led by Arthur "Skip" Squires and also used to help pump the church organ. He remembers Skip, who kept dairy cows, he went around dishing out milk to villagers. There was also a dairy, run by the Mearns family, this was opposite the present War Memorial. Johnnie Bishop used to live in Dorchester Road and Bob recalls that he would recharge radio batteries for 1/6d (old money) and accumulators for 6d. He remembers Harry Nobbs owning the paper shop and George Nobbs who was an engineer at the milk factory.
When Bob was 16 years old he became a member of the Home Guard as a messenger and would spend every 3rd night sleeping at an observation post up on Norden Hill.
He also trained as a machine gunner and alongside Harold Trump they guarded a position in Frome Vauchurch, now opposite "Sunnyside ", there were barrage balloons there in position to deter low flying aircraft.
When Bob was 18 years old he was called up and joined the Navy as a Radar operator. He had to use his travel warrant to travel to North Wales for his training at HMS Glendower. Bob spent most of his active service on the destroyer HMS Brilliant as a radar operator, he saw active service in Gibraltar, The Atlantic, Alexandria, and Casablanca. When stationed in Algiers he was able to meet up for a short time, with his cousin Cyril Read. They never met again and Bob believes Cyril was lost at sea, as he was serving on the Cruiser Penelope, which was sunk off Angio.
At one time when Bob's ship docked at Portsmouth he was granted leave, no one knew about this and he just turned up at home, this was a very emotional time for Bob and all his family.
Bob's saddest memory was being part of the escort for the HMS Leopoldville, a ship carrying many American troops, some of whom were from Piddlehinton Camp. The ship was torpedoed and 802 people were lost, Bob was involved in the recovery operation. In 2004 he was invited to attend a service at Piddlehinton Camp to plant trees in memory of those who lost their lives on the HMS Leopoldville. Fortunately Bob was on leave for VE and VJ Day and he remembers the celebrations around the ancient Cross at the centre of the village. The local W.I. gave a fountain pen to all the local servicemen, when the war was over.
Bob was de mobbed in 1946 and returned to work in the building trade. In 1948 he began working for Webb and Ford and stayed there for 41 years until retirement. Bob married Doris Mentern in 1949, they lived locally and raised their three children here. Bob still lives in Maiden Newton.
Ann Tuck - Wartime memories
Ann came to live in Maiden Newton in 1940. Her father, Fred Reynolds was already in the area working on building the BBC radio station at Rampisham, where he was Chief Rigger. The family originally lived in Daventry, but after the bombing of Coventry, Ann and her mother joined her father in Maiden Newton when Ann was 5 years old. On Christmas Day Ann's dad had to be at work at the Radio Station for 7.30 am in order to make sure everything was in order for the transmission of the King's speech at 3pm. Once this was over he would head for home at 3.15pm when her mum would start to cook their Christmas dinner.
Ann's family lived in the newly built council houses, now known as Newton Road. Their house backed on to an area that was used as a camp for American troops. This area is now Stanstead Road and the camp area spread across to the village hall. Ann remembers the troops and the layout of their camp. It seems that the local people did not go hungry as rather than waste food it would be given away, and Ann remembers not being able to fully open the door of the outside toilet, as supplies would sometimes be stored in there. An army lorry was positioned at the top of their garden (on guard duty) and Ann used to sit in there and watch the activities of the camp. Vegetables were supplied from their own garden. The village had a bakers, butchers, hardware shop, corner shop, (Weston and Hardings), post office, corn shop and milk factory, they never wanted for food. Ann attended the village school, the headmaster was Mr Tremlett and the teachers Mrs Scriven who lived at 39 Dorchester Rd, Miss Lathey and Miss Allison. The children could also attend Brownies, Girl Guides, Scouts and Cubs. Ann belonged to the Brownies, run by Pauline Budden and Miss Westmacott who both lived at Chilfrome. The girl Guides were run by Mrs Patchen who lived at the Old Mill on the Dorchester Road.
The village hall was used by the troops, but occasional dances were held at Maiden Newton House.
The local ARP Centre was where Cheverels Nursing Home is now.
The rector was Canon Slemick who lived in Dorchester Road. Ann remembers him as a delightful man. When attending Confirmation classes the local children would wait for him to let someone in, wait until he had sat himself down, then the next child would knock the door and so-on, whether he realised what they were up to is not known!
Ann recalls some of the villagers who left to join the services, and can remember Dick Hardy who worked in the Corner shop,he later became a prisoner-of war. Ann's happiest memory of this time was the celebration parties for children on VE Day and VJ Day. These parties were held in a field in Frome Lane, (first field past the current bungalows). Ann's dad was one of the organisers, along with Mrs Wells-Furby, Bill Stone and Hedley Hayward. Obviously at this time there was much celebrating and bunting around the village. Ann also recalls bunting in the village when a local man S Chubb Snr returned home after he had been reported missing for some time.
Fred and Bill Stone also ran the local youth football team.
SADDEST MEMORY . Witnessing the bombing of Coventry
For Ann's family the contact with the American troops did not end immediately after the war. Three of the troops used to regularly attend Sunday lunch with the family and Ann's dad kept in touch with Horace Fisher, of the7th Armoured Division after the war, when he returned to America. After a while Ann took up the correspondence and in 1970 Horace and his wife visited England, and Ann and her husband met them at Dorchester Station. They spent time taking them to Godmanstone for the smallest pub in England, Cerne Abbas and back to lunch at the Brewery pub in Maiden Newton. On the way Horace called in to what is now Angel Autos on the Yeovil Road and found the area that had been the guard room when he had been stationed there prior to coming to Maiden Newton.
Pats Memories
Pat was born and brought up in Parkstone, she came to this area on December 16th 1947. Pat had wanted to join one of the armed forces, but she had been too young at the time and her father was reluctant to allow her to do this. Once she was old enough Pat took a day off work and along with her sister went to Dorchester, originally wanting work in a garden nursery, but eventually becoming a Land Girl and being allocated Lower Maiden Newton Farm as her place of work. Pat was issued with her uniform dungarees, hat, scarf, beige shirt, green jumper, fawn coat, fawn socks a boiler suit, shoes, Wellington boots and a form of "spats" to go over leather boots when rat catching, so that rats could not jump into the boots! The only job Pat would not do on the farm was rat catching in the barn, electing to do the milking instead! Pat was billeted with Charlie and Gladys Woodland in what is now 12 Newton Road and on her first night in the village was invited to the pub and there met her future husband, Roland. Pat came to the village when she was 18 years old, married Roland at 19 and has lived here ever since.
The Land Army issued Pat with a bike and she used to cycle to work. The farmer, Archie Parsons would occasionally play tricks on the girls. When the weather was hot, they would put their bottles of lemonade in the water trough to keep cool. He would send them on some task over the hills and when they returned he would have drunk their cool drinks and replaced them, with not so cool ones! Pat arrived to work on the farm just before Christmas 1947, she was allowed home on Christmas Eve but had to return to the farm on Boxing Day as the work had to be done, whatever the season. Although Pat was not in the village during the war she was told about the dances held in the hall above the current hardware shop and the band that included her future father-in-law Bill Elliott. Pat recalls some of the shops present at his time. Mr and Mrs House had the bakers shop. Another Mr House had a butchers shop. Mearns were coal merchants and also ran the Cornstores. There was a tailor's shop just past the White Horse pub and there was a seamstress, Mrs Drewer-Trump in Dorchester Rd. Pat's bridesmaids dresses were made there. On the corner of Church Road there was a dairy parlor run by the Mearns family. There was a Post Office and Ironmongers. The building,(currently Cheverels Nursing Home), was owned by the Legg family and they ran a nursery further down the Dorchester Road. By this time the station had a coal yard on the left hand side going from Bull Lane, this had a covered area with all different grades of coal stored there. The village school's headmaster lived at 34 Dorchester Road. Pat recalls some of the local women doing the washing for the American soldiers, and sometimes they asked for blankets to make coats for themselves and their children.
Pat was still living in Parkstone at the end of the war, she worked for the brewery "Whitbreads".One of her happiest memories is being given the day off work to join the celebrations.
A memory that is not so good is having to sniff the bottles that Whitbreads supplied to the navy. Once they had been used to drink from they were frequently used as urinals and the sailors took delight in watching the girls having to sort out the beer bottles on return to shore!
Pat has spent the rest of her life in Maiden Newton, from her current home she can see the house she was originally billeted in and another house where her own children were raised is nearby.
Wartime memories at Maiden Newton - George Greening
I first arrived in Maiden Newton in 1942 as a four year old, and stayed for three years until wars end. I was staying with Mr and Mrs Russel, my great Aunt Annie and Uncle Russel, in the corner cottage of Dorchester Road and Frome Lane. The cottage looks much the same now on the outside as it did then except the front door may have been moved a little. I have not been inside the cottage since 1948 and assume the interior has been completely renovated and modernised.
Until 1945 there was only oil lamps to eat and read by on the dark winter evenings. Electricity was installed in 1945. All hot meals were cooked on a cast iron range fired by logs. The kitchen had the old heavy china sink and cold water tap. Baths were taken in a tin bath on the kitchen floor. The toilet was a wooden seat over a pit at the end of a long corrugated roofed shed, some way from the back door.
It was mostly a happy time. My uncle ran a 1937 Austin 7 which he drove daily to Dorchester to work and made the occasional family Sunday afternoon trip. He also preached as a Methodist lay preacher in various chapels around the local area. I remember a red brick chapel on the way to Frampton, where he thumped the pulpit and spoke loudly to the congregation. This manner was most unlike his normal quiet friendly self. If this chapel is not just a figment of my imagination, it is not standing there today. My aunt was a happy friendly person and well known among the neighbours. She took me a couple of times on a day trip to Bridport mostly to buy shoes, on a yellow two carriaged streamlined train. It seemed very modern for its day. They both moved to Sydling St. Nicholas to retire around 1950.
My closest friend at that time was my next door neighbour. Her name was Rita but I have not seen her since I left the village. She saved me from many a telling off by not telling tales.
I attended the old school for infants and remember sitting with other children in what seemed a large room being taught by a pretty young teacher. Alas, I cannot recall her name. I also vaguely recall several skirmishes in the playground with the youngest of many brothers belonging to a family called Chubb.
The most indelibly stamped memories are those of the American soldiers billeted in the village. Also my first sighting of a German. Some German POWs were exercised in pairs with a single guard down the Dorchester Road in view of everyone. For me at such an age, these were exciting times. I was lucky being acquainted with several soldiers who showered me with all the goodies that they had so many of. Besides the chocolate bars and the chewing gum, I was given various presents, including a pair of genuine Texan cowboy spurs and bullwhip. There seems to have been regular knocks on the door with soldiers asking if I would like a ride in a Jeep or truck. Of course these invitations were often accepted. Their kindness so impressed me that I have never lost my affection for Americans ever since.
The saddest day of this time was when in 1944 the troops were leaving the village to assemble for the D Day landings. There was a long loud procession of tanks and trucks rolling down Dorchester Road. It was lined with men, women and children shouting, crying and laughing. I was catching the goodies being thrown down to us and waving good-bye to those who were on their way to war. The days after seemed empty and still. Life changed, the Italians arrived. They spoke words nobody understood. Rita and I sometimes sat opposite the entrance to Bull Lane speaking gibberish to the Italian guard who would become annoyed and chase us away down the road. No more chocolate and rides and having to adjust to a quieter life sometimes helping a farmer to guide his cows through the village for milking.
In the summer of 1945 my father came to collect me to return to London. Another sad time leaving what had become home for the unknown so far away. Re assimilating with new friends and a bigger school was challenging. In particular being asked time and again to repeat myself to Londoners what it was I was saying, having by then a broad Dorset accent.