Barbara Semple WWII Memoirs (note format)

The Semple farming family lived, throughout the WWII years, at Tunnel Hill Farm located near to the junction of Knock Lane and the Stoke Road. 

I can shed some light on the mystery men surveying on 23.1.41 between Blisworth and Roade.  At Tunnel Hill early in January we were visited by surveyors.  The idea afoot was to develop our biggest field – the Plain and an adjoining one for R.A.F. use.  Accommodation was needed and the wing of our Regency farmhouse was taken over.  As children we were grieved to lose our play/’school’-room.  On January 14^th surveyors and craftsmen returned and shelves fixed.  Plans obviously changed and no more development took place.  An Observer Corps Post was established later nearer Roade.

 My Diaries to 1945 record a few things of local interest.

5.3.41  Large bomb at Stoke Bruerne killed a sheep.  There was another at Castlethorpe.

9.3.43            Maneuvers began at Tunnel Hill.

10.3.43.  ‘Highland Light Infantry here in a.m. (Mum gave away four girdles of scones).

                       Yorkshire Yeomanry and Durham Light Infantry later.  (Two ‘dead men’ in to tea!).  Officer and  sergeant in dining room for night.  Platoon slept in barn.  Mum watched battle in cows’ field –  and hid Germans in house!.  Canadians and British beat Germans.  Lieutenant Cunningham  (Scot) and a Welsh Grenadier Guard friend had baths and were in to tea.  Two English  Coldstream Guards and a ‘tank’ man who showed us tank newspapers were in barn overnight.  Watched convoys moving in the dark.  Next day a Canadian corporal was in to breakfast.  I  spoke to a French Canadian.  After the Armistice was signed 8 sergeants and a lieutenant (7  Irish and 2 Scottish) were in to play cards!  For months afterwards there were great gaps in  hedges where tanks had rolled through.

                         As a site for Boxing Day’s ‘Wild and Woolly’ an annual motor cycle challenge in  aid of Northampton General Hospital – it was not surprising that some fields with character  were used by bus loads of Home Guards practising with smoke bombs and tear gas (4^th-13^th  May 1943) and for a display by Milton/Blisworth/Gayton/and Eastcote Home Guards involving  Exercises, mock battles with machine guns and sticky bombs, camouflage and motor cycle  racing – (Bill Freeston riding through fire!) (16.5.43)

Some General Events:

31.7.41            Gas masks tested in mobile van.

12.6.43            Got new ration books and identity cards.

April 43            Having to register at Labour Exchange when I was sixteen.

October 43       Mother registering also.  She would have been 48 at the time!

22.12.43          Cycling to Towcester for supplementary coupons [for certain professions, protective clothing
 was supported as a 'supplement'.]

Fund-raising events : war effort

22.6.43            Country dancing at Blisworth School in aid of ‘Wings for Victory’.  Mary in Maypole dancing.

12.7.44            ‘Salute the Soldier’.  In the Baptist chapel – a glove puppet show given by Semple girls as part of the week’s celebration.  A target of £4,000 was set but £8,462 raised.

Secondary School 1939-45

For me was at Northampton High School.  Wailing sirens during the day were fairly common in 1941 but only once did we have to resort to a ‘make-shift’ air raid shelter below the hall/gym with corrugated iron roof!  We shared our premises with Brondesbury and Kilburn High School, had an extra half day and lots more homework!

7.7.44              In N.H.S. hall when 800 evacuees, arriving from London’s East End (escaping Flying Bombs), were given medical inspection prior to billeting.  Comment; nice children; almost all clean.  Prefects joined staff in overnight fire-watching: regular duties.

Changes at Home

7.9.43              ‘Top’ field ploughed up – government orders potatoes have to be grown despite unsuitable soil.

7.10.44            Blisworth school children up to pick them – a ‘holiday’ week!

April 45            Prisoners used for extra labour.  Germans much better workers than Italians. Their ditching inspected by one of four Canadian cousins on leave.

25^th Feb.          Double summer time was introduced to allow for longer working hours.

                        We cycled everywhere even in the blackout.  For a time three of us slept downstairs in a room with wooden shutters.

Memories of enemy activity           

Autumn 1940   Mother leaning out of bedroom window enjoying moonlight when a stick of bombs landed across the farm.  The chairs in the cottages danced and some tiles were lost.  Downstairs we dived under our oval mahogany dining table but had no blast.

                        The bomb which shook us up most was a loud landmine at Gulliver’s farm.

28.9.43            Seeing ‘plane caught in searchlights.

28.11.43          Discovered hole (5’-6’) deep in cows’ field.

29.6.44            Plane struck by lightning and disintegrated – Wellington near Roade.

7.7.44              Glider crashed near Reformatory, Tiffield. 2 killed.