Diss Family History Group

At the age of 6 or 7 I could go wherever I liked. You did not have to worry abut anything. Over fields, down lanes, onto Stuston Common, over into a piece of land at the back to Victoria Road near Palgrave which you got to over the Lows off Victoria Road. This was the other side of River Waveney. I spent many happy hours in these places bird watching and nest finding.

One day when we were on the common some soldiers gave us a ride on a Bren gun carrier over the common where they trained. We also saw a German H111 flying low across the common. The crew waved to us, but it was shot down near Beccles or Bungay I heard in later years.

One morning early when I was still in bed I heard a very loud rattling sound. When I went out to school there were bullet cases and bullets laying all the way along south side of Victoria Road and some of the poles had pieces split out of them. A fighter had chased a German plane down the road towards the west. I do not know what happened to it.

I watched the American planes, flying about especially in mornings and afternoons. Sometimes at night it was a bit frightening. When sirens sounded we went down the shelter under the stairs. Some bombs were dropped at Palgrave near the railway bridge. The shock waves came to cellar walls and frightened my mother who then said we were not going down there again. So the next time we went under the dining table in the room downstairs.

During the war years we had soldiers who came to lodge in the front bedroom and box room. Another time we had a family of three evacuees who lived in half the house and shared the kitchen. After the war a man from Norwich came to lodge with us who was part of government labour movement. He was a welder at the engineering works near us, and he went home at weekends. My parents must have received payments for lodgings.

Again, during the war my grandmother Garland used to have me to stay with her during the school holidays at Oakley, where she lived in a cottage on the road to Hoxon. I had lots of fun when I was there, fishing in the river, swimming, going on farms, especially at harvest times. When I was a bit older I used to help a dairyman milk cows and take churns to be collected at the top of drive. Upper Oakley Park Farm, I loved it. I could catch large bream which grandmother would clean and grill for me to eat.

Once or twice I walked up to Thorpe Abbotts Airfield to see BM Forts being prepared to fly missions, saw them change engines with an A Frame. It was a good time. During the war at Christmas the Americans gave local children a party. They picked us up in lorries and took us to the bases where we had fun playing games. There was ice cream, fruit, chocolate, cakes, sweets, with which we filled our pockets to come home. I had a lovely time growing up and feel sorry for children today.

I stayed with my grandmother every summer until I was 15 years old. On the Friday when I finished school she was waiting for me. I took my little case with clothes in and walked with her to Oakley to stay for six weeks. My mum was always surprised how much I had grown when I came home in September to start school again, but it was the way that I got new clothes to start school. I was always well dressed to go back to school.

Diss was completely different in those days. When I was about 14 or 15 years old I knew where everybody lived in Diss and their names. The only housing estate after the war was Uplands Way. Some council houses were built in the thirties, Stanley Road, Sunnyside Road and Frenze Road, and some houses were built on Roydon High Road and Louies Lane. The countryside almost came up to the town.

Diss Railway Station seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. One place I remember was the gasworks on Victoria Road. When I was young I went there with a sack to get some coke to help with the fire in wintertime. You could also buy creosote for treatment of wood, all coming from making the gas used in the town.

One of the things I nearly forgot was the time when I went to Norfolk & Norwich Hospital about my eye. When I was four a turn appeared in my right eye and in the war years I had to go to Norfolk & Norwich Hospital at least once a year but in the end I had an operation to put it straight when I was nine years old.

My mother took me by train from Diss to Norwich and we walked from there to the Hospital as it was wartime and Norwich was bombed in its centre. We sometimes had to go different ways to the Hospital as streets were blocked but my mother knew which way to go as she had worked in Chapelfields Norwich before she was married. After my visit to the Hospital we went to my aunts for a cup of tea. She lived in Chapelfields and was my dad’s sister. Then back to the train and return to Diss. The trains were always different. One time the seats in the carriages were slats, that was how old they were during the war. We also stopped at every station on the way to Norwich, in all it used to take about an hour in time.

When I was 11 it was made that I could take communion at church where my mother used to take me. Also I was a server to the priest in the church until I was 18 years of age. I had to learn which robes to get out for him to wear for the day’s requirement.