My Mother's War Memory

This is one of the few memories of the war that my Mother ever told me. Others she would only hint at and carried them to her grave. Here, although I do not know the actual date, was during the first fateful days after the Retreat from Dunkirk.

I was not born then, but my Mother and two Sisters aged 8 and 10 lived in what was then a small hamlet to the South of Ashford in Kent called South Willesborough. Running along one side of there was the main railway line from Folkestone to Charing Cross in London. German planes used the railway line as a reference while flying towards London and anti-aircraft guns were plenty around the Town itself, guarding not only the line but also the large railway works beside the station which manufactured and repaired the rolling stock for South East Kent. They were very skilled at downing the planes which flew low to see the track and latterly the "doodle-bugs" too before they got to their destination.

Just a stone's throw from the hamlet and outside the Station, was a manually operated level crossing for traffic to pass unless a train was due when the crossing keeper would walk over and shut the gates to leave the line open. On the edge of the hamlet was a very old pub, where my Mother worked as a barmaid, in the mornings washing and cleaning ready for the lunchtime rush of the workman from the Works. This work of hammering out the steel bars into wheels was very manually employed and even though it was hot, dirty, and dangerous using huge steam-operated machines, there were plenty of women as well as men involved and all came to quench their thirst at midday.

This fateful day the pub doors suddenly crashed open and a young boy - the son of the crossing keeper rushed in shouting that his Father wanted as many women as possible to bring pails of clean water and mugs to the crossing in the next 20 minutes (enamel mugs as poorer families could not afford to replace broken china ones. Enamel did not break when falling on the stone floors.) In those war-torn days you did not take time to ask why... you just did it.

My Mother sent my Sisters running up and down the terraced houses to knock on doors and give the same message and within ten minutes there was a trail of women, lugging pails of water and baskets of mugs trudging up to the crossing gates where they found the gates pulled across the road, leaving the railway line open. They asked the keeper what it was all about but all he would (or could?) say was that the women should walk along the side of the track, spacing themselves out as far as possible. In those days, of course, they were steam trains and because of the steady incline up from the coast, the trains were forced to go slowly even using two engines per train. He told my Mother, who was nearest to pass a message along the line, that what they were about to see would be no doubt shocking but that they must do what they could and remember that"Loose Talk Costs Lives" in other words they should not speak of it to other people.

Two Spitfires suddenly appeared and flew low overhead, waggling their wings at the women as they went down the line, where they could see them in the distance circling in the sky. Suddenly they could hear the whistle of an oncoming train and see the smoke from the engines of a very long train of cattle trucks. The Spitfires circle over the top as though guarding it from above... which was exactly what they were doing. The train approached the women and slowed down to a crawl, eventually stopping at the crossing. An Army Officer in a dirty and torn uniform jumped down from the engine and walked along the train with the firemen from the trains behind him. He shouted at them to open the trucks... as they did so to the women's horror, they saw they was full of wounded soldiers, all filthy and stinking to high heaven. Of course the women did not know anything about the Dunkirk Retreat which was considered censored information.

My Mother said the smell was appalling and she cried when they pulled a couple of men, heavily covered in bloody and dirty bandages, to the open door to gaze at what must have seemed like freedom for them. She thinks they both died soon afterwards. The women did not think twice, they surged forward dipping the mugs into the buckets and offering them up to the men. Every truck had a few men who were more able-bodied who took the mugs into the trucks for the soldiers lying there and cries of"Bless you ladies" began ringing out as they all thirstily drank the water. Some just gazed at the scene outside -"peaceful", silent and green with the sun shining on them. They could not believe it.

After about ten minutes the Officer ordered the trucks to be shut again and the train got slowly underway with much steam and smoke with the effort before it disappeared from view through the Station on its way to London.

All that was left was the trackside littered with abandoned mugs and crying women, some of whom collapsed now the train had gone, with the shock of being bought face to face with the real horrors of war. The planes circled back over the women and waggled their wings again in thanks before hurrying away to continue their task of guarding the British heroes who survived from Dunkirk three times the women did the same thing that day as trains arrived carrying the wounded survivors. And they never forgot their part that day in helping the wounded reach London.