West Wratting, Cambridgeshire in World War Two

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This page comes from my cousin, Anne Davey (born in 1933 as Anne Cole). She was evacuated as a child from London in World War II to our Cole grandparents in the country at The Old Post Office, West Wratting, Cambridgeshire. Her topics are why she was there, life in the home, at the village school, at play and recollections of the war itself. The photographs are from my own collection. If anyone else has any other relevant photographs, please get in touch.

Why I was evacuated to Wratting

The Old Post Office, West Wratting. Anne's grandfather, Herbert James Claud Cole (Jim) is at the gate, c 1938.

I started living with my grandparents in West Wratting before the Second World War. When the government wanted to evacuate all the children out of London, my grandparents didn't want to have evacuees billeted on them, so I stayed on. Later all women with school age children had to do work outside the home, so it was natural for me to stay on with my grandparents at Wratting while my Mum went back to teaching. Dad had been called up. After his posting to Palestine in 1940, I didn't see him again for 5 years.

Life in the home

Anne and her grandfather at the West Wratting village pump, c 1938.

ALL our water had to be carried from a stand-pipe across the road or from rainwater butts. The rainwater was used for washing and cleaning. As you can imagine every drop of water was precious. Recycling was the key word. The soapy water was used for washing the floors after the laundry and the final rinsing water was heated for baths. Laundry was a big issue. The copper was lit on Monday mornings to heat the water. Various tin baths were filled with rinsing water; there was the mangle for wringing out the clothes and then blue water to get the whites bright. In bad weather, the drying had to be round the kitchen range.

Outside in the garden was the wash-house with a brick copper, a tin bath and a mangle. Behind was the lavatory - a wooden bench with a hole and bucket; newspaper for toilet paper; hurricane lamp for the dark nights. It was Grand-dad's job to empty the bucket and bury the contents in the garden. Rain, hail, snow or shine, this was what we used except during the night when we had chamber pots.

As a child I took it all in my stride and Grand-dad was in his element. But oh how Grandmother must have hated it! She was not a country person. She had come from a small house in London with running water and a flush toilet (albeit an outside one). That was the environment she had known all her life, with people she had lived alongside as neighbours while her family was growing up. There the shops had been handy too.  Although there was a village shop in Wratting, the meat came by van, as did bread and main groceries. Milk had to be fetched daily from the farm in a jug. Life was really hard for her. I was never aware of her mixing with anyone while I was there. The monotony was broken only by the occasional bus ride in to Cambridge. Yet, in spite of having to do the day-to-day cooking on very basic facilities, she also made jams, preserved fruit and made our cough mixture for the winter (with blackcurrants, honey and vinegar - no lemons). We never had any foodstuff that wasn't in season or preserved by my grandparents. Apples and onions were stored in the spare room. Grand-dad made his own wine, and root vegetables were clamped up for the winter.

At the village school

Anne at the gate of the Old Post Office, c 1938

I started at the village school in Wratting before the main bulk of evacuees arrived. It was only a few hundred yards from my grandparents' house. It was a very typical village school catering for 4½ to 14 years old with two teachers. There was one large class room divided by a partition which folded back. Little ones were in one half and the older ones in the other. There was a large round tortoise-cast iron stove in each half with a big iron guard round, which was handy for drying clothes and shoes in bad weather, as a lot of the children walked long distances and their families were too poor to buy waterproof clothing. My best friend was one of 10 children and her father was a shepherd. There was a dark cloakroom (more of a corridor) where we were banished for any misdemeanours. I was often out there for not knowing my tables. The lavatories were in an outbuilding. There was a tarmac playground but no playing field. For sports we used a farmer's meadow. Milk was in third of a pint bottles and we had it free every morning at playtime. I think why my generation are generally healthy is that our childhood food was fresh and unprocessed. We were rationed so we didn't overeat, and as hygiene was basic, we certainly ate our 'peck of dirt'. On the hygiene front, we were all given cod liver oil and malt each morning at school. We were lined up for our spoonful - ONE spoon for all - no cleaning in between each child! Oh great days.

We sat in rows of two-person desks facing the teacher and the blackboard. Her desk was near the stove! Youngest children were at the front, oldest at the back. An awful lot was learnt by rote. We had slates until we could write properly and progressed to books with pencil and then pen and ink. The vicar played an active part in school life; he took us for religious education and heard us singing.

Much changed with the outbreak of war when the evacuees arrived. The coach bringing them and their teachers arrived at the village hall which was next to our house. The children were real East Enders. Very few, if any, had ever seen the countryside. Being from London, I had a foot in each camp in that I could understand what they were saying as well as the village dialect, and I could drop into either accent. I met two of the evacuee boys many years later in London and they told me how awful it had been for them. Many were exploited or neglected. The children were billeted on any home which had room and were not really welcome. My grandparents had no evacuees because several cousins arrived to 'fill up' the rooms briefly; then they went back to London. School changed with the arrival of the evacuees. The village children went to school in the mornings with the village teachers and the evacuees went in the afternoon with their own teachers. 

Anne with her grandmother picking fruit

As there was no afternoon school, we village children were left to amuse ourselves. We had the usual games in their season - skipping, ball games, hoops, marbles, conkers. We were out off doors in most weathers. Opposite the school was an embankment with huge old chestnut trees. Lots of roots were exposed down the bank where we played 'houses' and 'shops'. The dips and holes were cooking places or cupboards. Our 'food' was conkers, acorns, seeds and 'hips & haws' (hawthorn). We ate the young leaves of the hawthorn, made pipes with elder twigs, crushed elderberries for drinks or just ate them as they came off the tree. We picked wild flowers in the Spring - primroses & violets. In the Autumn we collected rose hips for the Government to make Rose Hip Syrup (for vital Vitamin C). Harvest was another great time - watching the binders and the corn being stooked, with the men chasing the rabbits and the women gleaning for chicken feed.

Two events stand out for me in connection with the war. One was being got out of bed to watch a 'dog fight' between two planes. It must have been summer as it was still light. The other was the great excitement of a German plane which came down in a field. It was guarded but we youngsters wanted to get near it, to ask endless questions and try to cadge pieces of if.