CD1

(67 mins)
 

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BORN YEO MILL, DEVON 1931 / FAMILY BACKGROUND / BUYING PARTRIDGE ARMS / GRANDFATHER / OLD VICARAGE / MATERNAL GRANDPARENTS / ONLY CHILD

[recorded 4 February 2002]

He was born about 100 yards from here [Partridge Arms Farm] at Bridge House, Yeo Mill on the 8^th May, 1931. His mother was Ellen, always known as Nellie. Her maiden name was Underhill and she came from High Bickington, but for a few years she lived at Bommertown, Molland and that's how his father came to meet her. His father was the only son of James Milton and Elizabeth who was formerly known as Quartly, the Devon cattle family. At the time they were renting Rugglepitt farm only half a mile away. His father was born there. JM was born in Bridge House here in this hamlet or village as you might call it.

His grandfather, in 1906, bought Partridge Arms Farm. It was then the public house, part of the Partridge Arms. He bought it from the Partridge family who used to own the major estate in the area. When they only had daughters they sold up at the turn of the last century [the late 1800s]. That's when the estate was sold and the Partridge Arms was sold and hence that's why a lot of the waste moorland that belongs to Anstey Common was sold with the Partridge Arms to his grandfather at that time. His grandfather didn't come here to live, he had a tenant looking after the pub, called Vesey, he thinks. Eventually Lord Clinton's estates here started selling some of their assets in the area and his grandfather started buying land himself. He gradually became a farmer again not a publican. His interests were obviously in the farming and the public house side began to run down and he concentrated on the farming. This is where the public house over the years has become a farm.

James, his grandfather, unfortunately died in 1936. JM can remember him as a five-year-old reasonably well. He died suddenly on February 16^th 1936 he thinks it was. His grandmother was living here at the Partridge Arms and that brings one back to why he was born at Bridge House. His father, being an only son, lived at Bridge House only a short distance away. When his grandfather died his father moved from Bridge House to the Partridge Arms, with his grandmother. He understands that when his father was married he moved from Rugglepitt to here. He's not quite certain of the sequence or the dates that occurred. His grandfather owned the Partridge Arms but still lived at Rugglepitt for some time after he bought the Partridge Arms. He's not certain how long.

He remembers, of his grandfather, that he was well known to understand horses. The type of individual that used to buy horses for the army in the first world war. He was nominated by the government to go and confiscate horses that were necessary for the armed services for use in France. Horses that were surplus to agricultural needs he had the power to confiscate if necessary. He was a very respected farmer in the area and was always involved in public life as it used to be in those days. As JM said, he died in 1936, when he was only 5 years old.

His father, at the end of 1936, bought the old vicarage at West Anstey, went there to live and his grandmother went up there to live with him. The Partridge Arms was let for a few years as a smallholding although the tenants used to take in guests. The licence lapsed before then for some time and it was just as a smallholding.

They went to the vicarage and lived there until Christmas 1944 when his father sold the vicarage to a person who was very interested in it, he thinks she was a French lady. He bought the vicarage for £1,100 and sold it for £4,100 and thought he'd made a lot of money. When he sold that he came back to the Partridge Arms which were his first recollections of the Partridge Arms.

He never knew his grandmother on his mother's side. She came from a family called Frayne. They were coachbuilders from mid Devon. Pony traps and that kind of coachbuilder. The only one JM knew was her closest relative who lived in Bristol and he was one of Stubbs and Burt, the well known riding boot and boot makers. He never knew his grandmother on that side but he knew his grandfather and he died, he thinks, in Autumn or Winter 1945. He didn't know him as well as he knew his own [father's father], even though it was only 5 years, because they were farther apart. JM has no brothers and sisters. He was the only one like his father was the only one. [Back to top]
 

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BRIDGE HOUSE / PARENTS / EARLIEST MEMORIES /WASHING EGGS / MOVE TO THE PARTRIDGE ARMS / GRANDMOTHER

JM was born at Bridge House, a very old house in the centre of the hamlet. He understood his father bought it when he got married and was told he bought it for £75. Today it has altered very little except for the main services. It sold a couple of years ago for £96,000. A lifetime's change in prices.

His mother was a very domesticated mother who treasured her home and country life. His father was a typical farmer who took a keen interest in local politics and public affairs as well as his farming. His mother was always an attractive redhead even to the end of her life. Small built, she was typical of the era rather than today's taller trends. His father was dark haired and fairly tall, hence JM's 6 foot.

They were very good parents. Their lives were devoted to their family even though he was the only child. He doesn't know why they stopped having children.

His earliest memories are sitting on the mat in front of a blazing open fire at Bridge House washing eggs with his mother. She used to keep a lot of free range poultry. He remembers the killing of the Christmas poultry and the local poultry dealer from the old mill at the bottom of the village coming and collecting the poultry and putting them on the train at East Anstey Station where they went off to the Bristol and Midlands markets. That used to be a regular weekly occurrence. That's the earliest thing he can remember, washing the eggs in front of the fire.

The eggs were brought in buckets from the poultry houses and being outdoors they were often marked particularly in wet weather. He recollects washing them in warm water with VIM to get the stains off the eggs. They were packed in egg trays very similar to today's in thirty dozen double sided boxes. His mother would dry them with a cloth before they were put on the tray. It was always a two person job and at his age he was capable of rubbing an egg.

Also at an early age he remembers an oil lamp being tipped over which nearly caught the house on fire. He remembers his father throwing buckets of water at it. He remembers his father creosoting the fence once and JM thought it would be wonderful to creosote the milking buckets which caused a bit of an upheaval as creosote and milking buckets didn't go together too well. Those are a few little incidents he can remember, because of course he left Bridge House at quite an early age to come to the Partridge Arms in 1936.

He can remember the furniture being carried from Bridge House up the road and being brought into the Partridge Arms. He can remember the person who lived with his grandfather and worked for him, called George Phillips, helping to carry bits and pieces up the road; just a vague memory. On the death of his grandfather he can't remember whose furniture was moved in and whose was moved out. Whether there was removal of furniture before this he's not sure because his grandmother was still going to be living with them at the Partridge Arms.

He can only remember his grandmother as an old lady because she was around 84 or so when she died. She was always an active person. She never suffered and was always a tough person. He believes his mother got on well with her and can't remember any incidents or bad feeling between them. [Back to top]
 

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PARTRIDGE ARMS / BREWING BEER / PARTRIDGE FAMILY / PARISH RECORDS / BUILDING UP FARM SIDE / TRENDS IN FARM SIZES / EXPANDING GUESTHOUSE PROVISION / FARM BUILDINGS

The Partridge Arms, then, was very similar in appearance as today. Obviously there have been a lot of changes but the building today looks very similar to what it looked like then. The same layout. Perhaps it's been modernised with 'inconveniences' but the external and internal appearances are very little different today; although he understands that in the last century it was a thatched inn. Apparently in the late 1800s there was a fire and the roof was badly burnt. It was re-roofed in slate which are present at the moment and which last year were taken off and re-nailed after 100 years. He doesn't think thatch would have lasted 100 years. The original part of the building is several hundred years old. It's built on a small stone foundation, no real foundations, with walls built of cob; which is a very old building material. It's almost just mud or clay and very, very warm. He recalls the windows all being taken out and renewed, the Georgian windows. In the early days when he first knew it, quite a lot of them were leaded light windows. The coming of electricity in 1960 was a great help to these old buildings as it brought facilities for keeping them dry which was much easier.

The Partridge Arms, as a pub, was the second pub in this little hamlet. There was the New Inn at one end and the Partridge Arms at the other. They were associated with different breweries. The Partridge Arms was associated with Starkey, Knight & Ford, a Tiverton brewery company at the turn of the century [19^th and 20^th] and the New Inn was associated with Arnold & Hancock. In the early days the Partridge Arms used to have it's own brewing facilities; a little building on the end of the house which got in a bad state at the end of the '40s and was demolished. It was where they brewed the ales in the early days of the previous century [19^th]. He can remember them taking out the copper cauldron and the things that were in there and his father selling them to the local scrap dealer for £2.

The name 'The Partridge Arms' comes from the Partridge family who didn't live in West Anstey but who owned an estate in Witheridge he believes. A John Partridge had married into a family called Hill in West Anstey who had no sons, just daughters and that's how the inheritance of the estate came to be moved from the Hill family to the Partridge family.

There were two pubs because, if you look in the parish records for 1835, there were 450 inhabitants in West Anstey. Today there are 118 adults and about 25 children. So there is a third of the population there was in 1835. He supposes that, with horseback the only means of travel, they brewed their own beer. There is a return to old traditions today with small modern breweries springing up.

When his father moved in they were running down the pub side of the premises and concentrating on the farming. His father gradually bought more land. Originally 40 acres it's gradually increased as his father added another 100 acres that he bought close by.  In his time JM has bought more land and in recent years his two sons have succeeded him in the farming and bought more land. So the Partridge Arms Farm today is about 800 acres. 600 in bye, 200 in moorland and attached to that is a vast area of common grazing rights.

Over the years the land came from farms that have disappeared and today the old farm houses are private houses with a small acreage for pony paddocks and so on and the land has been sold to other adjoining farmers. That has been the trend for several years. Farms are getting bigger although not necessarily more efficient. One might say you need more to stay still. In many instances of buying land it has been in competition with other farmers.

All the time since his grandmother's time, the Partridge Arms, although the licence side of it lapsed for some years, has always been run as a residential guest provision, even when it was tenanted. In 1959, when he got married, they increased the guest provision and re-licensed the premises. It is still licensed to this day. Although it is a large farm it's still carrying on with its reputation as a residential property.

Despite the acquisition of the land there were never many traditional outbuildings with the Partridge Arms as a farm. As a public house it had a building on the end of it which used to be residential upstairs and there was a skittle alley. To this day they still call it the skittle alley, though there are no skittles or anything. That was the only building that was really attached to the Partridge Arms. The buildings on the farm today have been erected in recent years and are much more modern farm buildings suitable for modern day farming. They don't have the privilege of redundant farm buildings for alternative use. [Back to top]
 

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WEST ANSTEY SCHOOL AND EVACUEES / RIDING TO SCHOOL / SCHOOL LUNCHES / EARLY FRIENDSHIPS / PETER VENNER / TALENTS / SCHOOL VERSUS HOME LIFE

JM went to the local school at West Anstey and for a very short time to the South Molton Community College. West Anstey school was a very lively school. He mostly recalls the war years when there were evacuees. The school attendance got up to nearly 100. He remembers a supply teacher coming in because the 2 normal teachers couldn't cope with the numbers. The dark haired teacher was called Miss O'Brien, an Irish girl who came in to help with the teaching because of the evacuees from London and other places that descended on the parish in the early '40s.  West Anstey school closed, he thinks, in 1951 and the children went to East Anstey school where they still do to this day. There were schools in both parishes and further west in Molland. The Molland school closed and the children also went to East Anstey school. In most instances they are transported to East Anstey.

He always walked to school. There was no transport in those days. Children from the outlying areas rode ponies to school. A little farmstead close to West Anstey school used to have a stable purposely for the outlying children to keep their ponies during the day before they rode home in the evening. Woods Farm, 100 yards or so from the school, always had availability of stabling for those children. His walk was only about three parts of a mile. The school was not in the hamlet and is a property today converted into residential units and is called Moor Way.

At midday some went home for lunch if they were close enough or they took sandwiches. In later years there were school dinners from South Molton in a small van.  An early event of school dinners. Mostly the children would set off as soon as the class ended and go tearing off along the road or across the fields home for lunch. There was always an hour for lunch so it was a bit of a rush job. On many occasions he used to come home for lunch and sometimes he took a packed lunch. In later years one had the availability of lunches brought from South Molton. It was quite a novelty and its cost effect was something that families were conscious of in those days.

As an only child his friendships at school were very, very important and even to this day, people he grew up with, he still has good connections with and it is very enjoyable to meet people he was at school with. It's a lifelong connection and an appreciated relationship. He remembers the lad who took him to school the first day. He was a distant cousin. Used to come to the Post Office in the village, called Venner. Mr Venner was the shopkeeper and he had a son and a daughter, Fred and Joyce. Mr Venner was a distant cousin of JM's father. A young fellow, another cousin, used to come and stay in the shop and JM can remember not wanting to go to school one afternoon for some reason after coming home to lunch. He remembers Peter Venner deciding that he would lead JM to school and he has been told that he cried all the way up the hill on the way there.

Peter was a person that he knew who went away into the Royal Navy at the beginning of the war and was one of the gunners of the battleship Exeter, which was well known in history as the ship involved in the battle with the Graf Spee in the early part of the war. JM lost contact with Peter for some years because he thought he went down with the Exeter in the Far East at the end of the war but after about 25 years he suddenly appeared. He'd married a Malaysian girl and when she died he came back to live in South Devon [Fred Venner, a cousin of Peter Venner's subsequently told JM that this was innacurate]. JM remembers him well because of the episode of crying all the way to school.

At school sometimes JM hated it and sometimes he liked it. It may have been according to his talents. He was good at maths, geography and reasonably good at history but anything else he was average. He was glad the day he left school. Dislike of school was really because early in life he worked weekends and holidays on the farm and didn't have the means of travel to go away. He lived at home and got involved with the local life and the things that his parents did and other people were doing as a community and he wanted to join them quickly and he found school an occupational hazard for that way of life. Even so when he looks back they were the best days of his life.[Back to top]
 

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EARLY FRIENDSHIPS / EVACUEES / WAR YEARS / FATHER A SPECIAL POLICEMAN / FIRST MOTOR CAR IN WEST ANSTEY / POACHING SALMON / WATER BAILIFFS

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Sadly a lot of his other friends have moved on. There was a young fellow called Dennis Brunt who left the area, went away to war and joined the Metropolitan Police and then came back after many years to retirement from the police. Sadly he died a few years ago. Fred James was another young fellow at school; Peter Vellacott who's still living today. A young fellow called John Grimshire and John Nicholls who are both living locally as farmers. Billy Kingdon, who went to live in Taunton; he was involved in the early days of television maintenance and sales; he's now retired and is 10 days younger than JM. That's just a few of the names; he could take an hour with all the names he could recall from his schooldays.

He can remember quite a few of the names of evacuees that came from the area. Some of them stayed in the area and never went home; why, he doesn't know. One fellow called Ronald Jemmison, he and his family are farming now near Barnstaple. He came as an evacuee and stayed with the family he came to after he left school and made his home in these parts.

He can remember the day war was declared. He was at the vicarage listening to the radio broadcast of the declaration of war. He can remember well the reason for waiting for the reply from the German government regarding their invasion of Poland. He can remember that morning as if it was yesterday. Although he wasn't that old, he can remember it very, very well He can remember a lot of incidents in the war.

His father was a special policeman. He took part in the transfer into what they called the War Reserve Police and worked in association with the police and the armed services during the war. He was the first person to have a motor car in West Anstey. As a 4 or 5 year old at Bridge House he remembers his father's first motor car was an American 'Overland' with a canvas hood and a dickey on the back. During the war he sold that one and bought a Hillman Minx. It's funny, he can't remember the number of the car he has today, but he can remember the make and number of the car he had then. It was a  Hillman Minx box type vehicle, blue and black in colour and it was OD 6457.

For that car, his father had special allowances to use it on public service. The local policeman only had a bicycle and if he needed transport in an emergency JM's father was a sort of taxi driver for him. It was an occasion to jump in the back when they went to go. He recalls many activities he saw happening. It was nice for a young person to see things he would not have seen otherwise.

The policeman during the war was called Bill Mudge and he would come quite often to get JM's father to drive him somewhere around. He was the policeman for West Anstey, East Anstey, Knowstone and Molland. That was his beat, four parishes. He lived there in Yeo Mill in what is now known as Western Cottage. Bill was quite a character compared to the police of today.

JM recalls in the autumn the salmon came up the river Yeo and at the bottom of the village you'd always get the locals looking for a bit of fresh salmon, strictly illegal these days. On one interesting occasion during the early part of the war he remembers seeing the local lads going out for salmon one evening with their gaff, and seeing the policeman in his uniform, the vicar in his dog-collar and half a dozen of the local lads all ganging together by Yeo Mill bridge and going off with a torch to go and dazzle and hook a salmon. He wonders if you would see the local policeman and vicar joining in the activities today. Not on just the one occasion but quite often.

JM occasionally went with them. Some of them used to keep an eye open for the water bailiff. That was made easier because the North Devon Railway from Barnstaple to Taunton runs through Yeo Mill, and before the motor car era they got to know that the bailiffs came from Barnstaple on the 5 to 5 train in the evening, got off at East Anstey, walked back via an observation point to Molland and it was the 10 past 10 train that they went back on to Barnstaple. So they never went fishing 'til after the 10 past 10 train had gone back to Barnstaple. What would have happened if they'd found some other way back to Barnstaple or stayed the night, he doesn't know but it didn't ever occur. Yes, JM joined in the fishing, it was part of their winter entertainment. [Back to top]
 

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RATIONING / AMERICAN TROOPS / SEARCHLIGHT BATTERY / CONFLICT BETWEEN BRITISH AND AMERICAN SOLDIERS / BLACK MARKET / RATIONING / HOME PRODUCED MEAT

The effects of the war included rationing of course although food was produced on the farms and the rural community managed with rabbits and plenty of home produced food. Of course things like sugar that were not home produced were in very short supply. Food in general was fairly plentiful.

He remembers very well in 1943 going into South Molton market with his father on the train from Yeo Mill Halt, although why he did on a school day he can't remember, and when they got home in the afternoon the place was alive with American soldiers and vehicles. It was the day they moved onto West Anstey and Molland Commons. They'd come by train to Dulverton, then Yeo Mill Halt and there were literally thousands of them marshalling on the moors and waiting ultimately for the D-day landings. A lot of training took place on Exmoor from that time onwards both on the north part of the moor and at Anstey.

Already at Anstey, built at the beginning of the war, there had been a searchlight and anti-aircraft  battery at the top of the hill manned by a garrison of about 30 or 40 British servicemen. It was part of the South Wales docks defences as they were in the direct flight path of aircraft coming over from north France. There was a line of them across this part of the country.

Then the Americans arrived and he recalls that there was very much of a conflict between our own soldiers on the battery here and the Americans. The Americans had plenty of money. He remembers the local policeman coming for his father one evening and being called to the Jubilee Inn where the landlady would only serve our chaps beer but when the Americans went in she had produced spirits. The military police had been called in to sort out the upset. JM remembers sitting in the car watching the MPs bringing out some of the culprits of a free-for-all that had occurred. It was almost as if a world war had really come to Anstey. Spirits were scarce and beer was relatively plentiful and beer was the cheaper drink as was cider. She could charge considerably more for spirits and the Americans didn't like our beer. She'd obviously said to our men that she hadn't got any whisky until lorry-loads of Americans arrived. They had to close the Jubilee for a few days afterwards to carry out some of the repairs.

He can remember sitting in the back of the car a little while before that, as his father drove old Mudge to the Jubilee (he doesn't think his father knew what Bill wanted him for) and Bill Mudge was out with a torch waving down every car that came along the main road towards Taunton (which was very few in those days, with the blackout). Eventually he flagged one down and drew it into the yard. Bill went and used the telephone in the Jubilee. The vehicle was a hearse. The sergeant and others arrived and after much debate it was demanded that the undertaker open the coffin. Obviously the police had known what was going on because in the coffin they found pork and salmon which, on the black market, was being transported to Bristol. He believes the culprit, from the Barnstaple area, served a prison sentence. The police had been wondering why so many people were being cremated at Bristol crematorium hence Bill Mudge watching for this vehicle.

It was human nature that local people would try to make a little extra on the black market and no doubt some of them did but JM doesn't recall much in this area. Rabbit was one of the main meat diets that was available because you couldn't kill other forms of meat like pigs on your own farms even in those days without having a licence. If you got a licence then they took away your ration book coupons. There was a system where everyone had their ration books and coupons, meat coupons and such, and they had to be handed in if they gave you a licence to kill a home produced animal of any nature. Yes, you had your local policeman and your local administration otherwise. It wasn't as easy as some people think just to kill an animal and have it for your own consumption or do whatever you liked. There were severe penalties involved. [Back to top]
 

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EVACUEES / AMERICAN PREPARATIONS FOR D-DAY / THE 'RAG-TAG' ARMY / AMERICANS AND BRITISH GIRLS / WAR DAMAGE

They had evacuees while they were at the vicarage during that part of the war. They had a family and two brothers called Holman. But during the lapse in the bombing in London, they went home, part way through the war, back to their parents. They lost contact with them after the V-bombs started and never knew what happened to the family. There was a second evacuation from the cities when the V rockets were launched into this country but they lost contact and never heard any more from them.

Meanwhile the American forces were on the moor with their tanks and training and gunnery practice until the June of 1944, the D-day landings. He recalls the army coming round to all the farmers telling them to keep off the roads at certain times and days. It happened several times in the previous few months and then when nothing had happened for 24 hours the farmers were allowed to go back to take their milk churns and horses and carts and whatever they wanted to go on the roads again. This was done as an exercise on a few occasions. He can remember on the evening of June 4^th or 5^th the same notices coming and everyone thinking it was the same activity but it was soon evident that there was something larger afoot because there were hundreds of men moving, the railway wagons moved in onto the old railway, lorries were lined up on the main road and the Americans were marching two a-file from the moors to the village and embarking on the railway trucks and onto the lorries to move off to the south coast. He supposes that history shows the armies went from the south coast of England but the main army that went after the bridgeheads were established, were mainly from the north part of the county which went south to go over later.

They always called the Americans the 'rag tag' army because they were never so well turned out, they were more shabbily dressed in their battle dress than the British were. That used to cause a bit of friction. Our men were always immaculately dressed even in their battle uniforms whereas the Americans were not quite so presentable.

There were good friendships with them at higher levels but there was just this personal feeling with them that they thought they could buy everything when with British girls and female company was a conflict with them always. He remembers once on a Sunday evening down at Yeo Mill cross (called Green Hill Cross today) during one of the favourite activities of young lads, pitch and toss, getting a penny or a ha'penny nearest to a penknife stuck in the ground. One chap called George Medland had his 15 or 16 year old sister with him and along came an American officer in a Jeep who stopped and got chatting to them and asked George if he could have half an hour with his sister. George, who had custody of his sister, said 'No! No! No!' (George still lives in East Anstey and must be in his 80s or late 70s but then only slightly older than his sister). The American officer offered 10 shillings, or as it was called then a 'ten bob note'. George flatly refused and was then asked for a quarter of an hour and in the end 'for God's sake man just five minutes.' George hung onto the hand of his sister and the American drove off. George still often talks about it today.

The era of the war and the Americans sticks in everyone's minds with anti-aircraft crews here, the bombers going over the night sky to South Wales and half an hour later coming back, the dog fights with fighter aircraft taking place in the air above them. Nothing like the South of England, he supposes, but at times quite frightening. They suffered shrapnel quite heavily in this valley because as they caught the aircraft in the crossbeams of the searchlights the anti-aircraft guns opened up. A lot of roofs suffered war damage and were compensated. His father received £44 for war damage. [Back to top]
 

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CONTACT WITH AMERICANS / KEEPING IN TOUCH / VE DAY CELEBRATIONS / END OF WAR / ANNIVERSARIES

Apart from the tank training and gunnery practice on the moors the Americans never took part much in activities although the British army camp up the road always had competitions with the locals. Cricket matches in the summer evenings and JM can remember playing cricket and going in the Nissan hut canteen for tea. Yes they had quite a lot of activities with the local population and they joined in well. The Americans, no, not so much.

Despite that they did get to know quite a few and kept contact with them. They still do keep in contact with one American officer that was here for D-Day but it wasn't one that made actual contact in this parish but one his wife made contact with of a similar nature in her part of the country which was Uffculme in East Devon not far from the Dunkerswell [?] aerodrome where they lived; a man called Bruce Greenberg, who she flew over to Los Angeles and saw two years ago. He's still alive and they hear from him regularly. Different now, they used to write once a year for many years, it's not uncommon now any evening to have half an hour on the telephone talking to him and it sounds as if he's just down the road.

He remembers 8^th May, 1945, his birthday, when the war in Europe finally ended. Festivities were hastily organised that evening and there was quite a lot of activity with everyone joining in, perhaps drinking too much, terrific socialising. But it was the next day which was well organised and he can remember he had never seen such a large bonfire as they had in Hayes's meadow at the bottom of the village opposite what is now known as Millbrook. He doesn't know how they managed to build such a big one in that time. He can remember the celebrations in that field and all around the locality. They seemed to last for two or three days. The ladies of the parish organised tea and food and whatever they could obtain and how they did it in such a short time was terrific. There were competitions with the horses, pony racing; it was a great occasion and stands out as a good get together for celebrations.

He was one of the younger ones not old enough to enjoy the best of it but old enough to well remember it and old enough to be thankful to see the war end as in a couple of years he would have been old enough to wear a uniform himself. It used to often cross ones's mind that after 6 years of war, if it went much longer, one could also be involved in the armed services. Still, it well ended in May 1944 [actually 1945] and on the 14^th August 1945 was another great occasion when the Far Eastern war came abruptly to an end. It was realised that that war was coming to an end and the celebrations were a bit more organised. That doesn't stand out as much as the victory in Europe on the 8^th May; perhaps it was because it was his birthday. Another coincidence arose when the 14^th August was the birthday of his youngest son. Also he and Hazel were married on 6^th June 1959 which happened to be the anniversary of the D-Day landings in 1944. [Back to top]