Bircham girl

During the Second World War I was living in a small village called Great Bircham in Norfolk. I was only eight years old when war broke out but can still remember that time clearly.

Just down the road from our house was an RAF camp where reconnaissance planes, Lancasters and Blenheims flew missions. The boys from the camp used to get down to the local pub where they would ‘rag’ the poor old dear who kept it, we often used to find pint mugs in our gardens. Some of the families in the village would invite the boys to come to their homes for tea or supper.

We also had a search light division at the approach to the village.

In the village church yard there is now a military cemetery where British, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and even German servicemen are buried in a small but well kept part of the cemetery. Many airmen were killed over the fields and nearby coastline of Norfolk, including some who died as a result of tragic accidents.

My father, who had already fought in the First World War, wanted to join up again but he was too old and also needed as a land worker so had to settle for the local Home Guard. To this day I remember the dug out he made for my mother, two brothers and me — just a large hole dug out in the ground and a rusty piece of corrugated tin placed over the top. We were lucky to have a good friend who had a nice dug out with comfortable bunks, blankets and always some thing to eat or drink. To us children it was nice and we always wanted the siren to go off so we could go there, never able to fully understand the danger.

One Sunday afternoon a plane with a cross clearly marked on its side was spotted flying low across the countryside. I was at my friend’s house when I noticed it and heard its distinctive sound. The enemy plane fired its guns at the old Mill on the edge of the village hitting it a number of times, but no one was hurt. The owners later claimed to have found a bullet in one of the beds. Lord Haw-Haw (the name British listeners gave to William Joyce, a German radio propaganda broadcaster during World War II) announced that the Germans had hit Bircham aerodrome, not true of course.

Another vivid memory still with me was seeing about eight small tanks stop on the road opposite our little house with the Dessert Rat boys driving them. My mother and her two neighbours quickly set to work making cups of tea for them. I believe they were looking for the woods where they stayed for a long time. After the end of the war we found many tunnels in those woods where the soldiers had based themselves training to fight.

At the village school all the windows had sticky tape put on them to reduce the damage from glass splinters if any bombs were to explode nearby. The field in front of our house was often used by the WAAFs to pack parachutes we were told that some were given to the soldiers who were dropped at Arnhem. I also saw those planes and gliders going over our village on a sunny afternoon in September 1944.

A small number of evacuees, some with their mothers, came to Bircham but as most houses were quite small and had large families of their own living there the evacuees were billeted with widows. Some of the children did not stay long as they were unhappy and not used to gentle village life.

My family and I left Bircham many years ago to find work in a nearby town. I tell my family and grandchildren about my time growing up in Bircham and we often go back there to visit. The old Mill has been restored and is now a lovely attraction where we sometimes enjoy a cream tea and can see in the distance my beloved old home and the beautiful countryside surrounding it.

Hazel Moore (nee Prior)

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