Memories of wartime by Lilian Chambers (Later to become Lilian Pidgeon on her marriage to Donald Pidgeon)

I had worked in the Air Ministry since 1937, and with the impending announcement of war, I was instructed that if war was declared I was to stay at home but report at a certain time to two military police at Winchmore Hill until told differently. War was declared and after 3 or 4 days following these orders I was told to go back to the Air Ministry at Kingsway as usual. This I did. It was at this time that I was offered a commission into the WAAF, because of my service with the Air Ministry, but I declined, choosing to stay in the Air Ministry in London. After this we moved to a brand new building at Berkeley Square. They were lovely offices but unfortunately had no air raid shelters so eventually we were all evacuated to Harrogate, going by train. What an experience, and a lot of organising went into getting us all safely up there and billeted ready for work!

The department I was attached to would be at the Crown Hotel, requisitioned by the Air Ministry for the duration of the war and of course we all had to be allocated billets. I was housed with two spinsters, whose names I can no longer recall, who each owned half of the house. It was decided that I would eat with one in her side of the house one day then with the other lady in her half the next day. It was all very strange!

After a few weeks working our supervisor Miss Williamson, arranged for us to go to see the ‘Fol de Rolls’ show at the theatre. When I told my landladies I was going they told me they wanted me in by 10pm, and that if I wasn’t they wouldn’t let me in. I told my supervisor, who bless her, came home with me missing the last acts in the process. Well, true to their word they had locked me out even though it was just about on 10pm when we got there. My supervisor knocked on the door, called through the letterbox etc but to no avail. She said “now what do we do?” and eventually decided to take me back to the Crown Hotel, our offices. Just inside the entrance was a lobby where the dispatch riders who came up from London would take a nap before driving all the way back. Well, I can tell you I never slept a wink that night for fear some hulk of a man flopped down in there! Next morning my supervisor arranged for a new billet for me at Starbeck and that turned out to be wonderful. They were lovely people and made me so welcome. The two spinsters were black listed after that thankfully.

Life went on very nicely, considering we were at war, and spring came and the valley gardens were such a picture. Then one day a letter came from my father asking me if I could get a transfer to London as he being in the Naval Reserve, was due to be posted to Chatham. This would mean my mother would be on her own living a short distance from London and where there were many air raids of course. I tried but in vain so I resigned from the Air Ministry and moved back to London. My brother, who is 5 years younger than me, had by then been sent down to Dorset before the war was declared and was living with Sid and Dulcie Pidgeon, at Newlands Farm, Lulworth, who were later to become my father- and mother-in-law.

And so another chapter of my life in the war years began. I found another job at the London Chamber of Commerce in Cannon Street, which involved travelling from Grange Park station to the city, during which many air raids took place, which could be very worrying. After a short time my father came back from Chatham to continue his reserved occupation at Mount Pleasant, a sorting office for the Post Office. So I had given up my job with the Air Ministry needlessly but I guess that’s life and we were at war and that brought with it many challenging situations.

One of the sections I worked for was the Perfume and Toiletries section. I had to take shorthand notes of their meetings, and then quite out of the blue one day they asked me if I would like to take part in a documentary film. It was wartime and many good toiletries and cosmetics were unavailable. The film was to show the results to your skin of buying and using ‘back street’ cosmetics made from very poor and often questionable ingredients, which would leave the skin in a dreadful condition. I had to go to the Royal Free Hospital where they made up my face to look very poor and spotty by putting on my face some clinical spots. My face looked absolutely terrible and I was just glad it was only for a few hours. It was quite an exciting experience nevertheless and when that part was filmed I was then made up using really good cosmetics made by Coty and Max Factor and others who all took part. Although I didn’t get paid for doing the film I was very well recompensed as many of the firms sent me huge amounts of their products which lasted me years. It was all in all a wonderful experience. I hadn’t told my family about it and one of my aunties happened to see the film and said she thought the lady looked very much like me but that it couldn’t have been! When I told her it was she was really amazed. From that time on I was known at the Chamber of Commerce as their ‘Film Star’!

But we were in the middle of a war, and it was a very trying time with air raids at any time of the day or night. When an air raid siren sounded while we were at work we had to pick up our typewriters etc and go down a very tight spiral staircase to the underground building. At the ‘all clear’ we had to head back up to the office via the same stairway. Thinking back I don’t know what would have happened if one of us had tripped or toppled. It would have had a domino effect and we would all have gone down with typewriters and all!

In 1941 the next wonderful event in my life was becoming engaged to Don, the son of Sid and Dulcie Pidgeon whose Dorset farm, Newlands at Lulworth, my brother had been sent to, to get him out of London. We had known the Pidgeon family for years. We met when my father, mother and brother and I holidayed in our caravan down there. As I had been working in London I had never met Don who was in the Air Force, until he came home one weekend while he was stationed at Warmwell and I was on a weekend break. We hit it off straight away and we were eventually married at Holy Trinity Church Lulworth in July 1942.

Unfortunately my time was limited with the Chamber of Commerce as having come out of a reserved occupation in the Air Ministry I was then eligible for call up for National Service. I chose to join the Land Army and was sent to Broadclyst Farm run by Mr Salter. What a change of lifestyle this was after working as a shorthand typist in London. When I left the Chamber of Commerce my boss, Mr Middlemiss, composed a special poem about me to write in my autograph book.

For Lilian
We’re sorry to lose her
we think she was grand
But the Lily that once
We held in our hand
Has now blossomed out
As a flower of the land.

Her shorthand was slick,
Her typing unique
But now she’s all shorthorns
And milking techniques
She cleans out the hen house
Twice every week.

She once concentrated
On perfumes and soaps
We ill do without her
But at last we hope
When feeding the piglets
Their ration of thistles
She spares just a moment
To think of their bristles
On which she has written
So many epistles.

By
John Middlemiss

15th February 1942

As I had left in January 1942 and he sent me this in February he enclosed this covering letter:

17th February 1942

Dear Lilian
I am sorry to have been so long with your autograph album but my muse is a fickle one and will not be hurried.
Thank you for your letter. I think we are all tickled pink at the thought of our film star in trousers and green shirt but you seem to be enjoying it and I don’t suppose the Farmer is as impatient and irritable as I so often am. Let us know how you get on won’t you, and the very best of luck.

Yours Sincerely

John Middlemiss.

I started at Broadclyst farm in January 1942 and it surely was as I say, a change in lifestyle. Up at 6am each morning when it was still dark and bitterly cold. We had to break the ice on the animals’ drinking troughs. Then we helped get the cows in with the cowhand Jim and we had to learn to milk the cow, which then of course was done by hand. We usually finished at 8.30am and went back to the farmhouse for our breakfast. The day would involve feeding the pigs and hens. In early spring it was lambing time. Sometimes a ewe would reject its lamb but with a bit of coaxing from Mr Salter along with me they would usually accept them. Sometimes a lamb would be born dead and when this happened it would be skinned and the skin placed on another lamb so that the mother of the dead lamb would smell the attached coat and would accept it as her own. It was all very interesting.

Another part of the work was shearing the ewes and a horrible horned ram. My task was to turn the handle while Fred sheared. It was very hot and exhausting work. The ram had very big horns and was very possessive over the ewes. So
one day when it was time for me to go and get the cows in for afternoon milking, Mr Salter said he would hold the ram. I set off across the field when suddenly I heard Mr Salter shouting. I turned around to see the blessed ram coming at full speed after me. I had to run as fast as I could until I was safe from him!
When I left Mr Salter wrote a humorous poem in my autograph book about all of this:

For Lilian
I’ll wager you’ll be dreaming
Before too many morns
Maybe you’ll wake up screaming
Pursued by monstrous horns!

I guess you’ll still be turning
That handle in your sleep
For a cup of tea be yearning
While Fred shears endless sheep.

I know that you’ll be hearing
Jim’s voice ‘ere morning light
And booglie wooglie piggies
Will haunt you in the night !
By
H.B. Salter
25th June 1942

I left there on the last weekend in June to go to Newlands farm from where I got married on July 11th 1942 at Holy Trinity church West Lulworth to Don. Straightaway he was posted to Northern Ireland so I went with him. Life there was certainly a contrast to England. Don found a lovely billet with a Mr and Mrs Skimmings who were a really lovely couple. At one time I was really ill and when Don went off to Newtownards after breakfast each day Mr Skimmings would carry me downstairs to be with his wife during the day until Don came home again in the evening. He did this every day for nearly a month until I recovered. In May 1943 I returned to Newlands farm in Dorset to have our son who was born on May 20th. We called him Christopher.

Later that year I returned to Northern Ireland with Christopher. A very tearful Pop Pidgeon saw us off from Wool Station. We had to take a train from Wool to London then travel across to Euston where we booked a night sleeper. I took a small spirit stove with which to heat Christopher’s food. We were halfway into the journey when the train stopped near Crewe, as there were air raids. Eventually we arrived at Stranraer where we boarded the boat which took us to Belfast and from there we went to Newtownards. It was quite a journey with a baby but thankfully he was as good as gold. We were all glad to get to our destination safely and we were all together. Every moment was treasured as in wartime you just didn’t know what might happen. You never knew what tomorrow might hold.

We stayed there until Don was posted to Belgium in 1944. I returned to Lulworth with Christopher where I witnessed the forces of many nationalities massing for D-Day 1944. It was very spectacular. Although Lulworth didn’t get off lightly, as our farm, Newlands farm had a searchlight and gun emplacement and enemy aircraft often tried to attack them.

I was at Newlands farm when victory in Europe was announced but being on a farm life just more or less carried on as usual. We didn’t have any definite celebrations. We were just happy to know that one theatre of war was over. Victory in Japan was not until July and by then Don was in India as immediately
after VE Day he was sent straight to India from Belgium and I didn’t see him again until he returned in 1948. By this time my father-in-law had given up the farm in 1945 due to ill health, and eventually after many moves, I moved back with Christopher to my parents’ house in Grange Park in London where we stayed until Don returned from India.

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