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This is my aunts story ( Joan Punter, nee Toller )- as she wrote it- March 2005.
I was born in 1940 so war was a normal state of affairs for me and my sister. The family ( grannie, aunts, uncles and cousin ) all lived in Oxford Road Cambridge. My father was away fighting the war in France, in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Uncle Bill was in the Fire Service and Uncle George was in the R.A.F. so men in uniform was normal. Uncle Russ and Uncle Arthur worked away some of the time in munitions, so ours was a world of women. We grew our own veg and salad, kept the allotment going to help Bill, with chickens and pigs to feed. We made our own clothes often and baked cakes and pies. Nights were spent sleeping under the air-raid metal ) table, surrounded by wire mesh on a red cross blanket. We had an Anderson shelter in the garden, which was cosy but cold and damp. We also went in the cupboard under the stairs when the siren went, and took it in turns to sit on the gas meter! Luckily for us the bombers which came over Cambridge usually headed up north to bomb our factories which made munitions, but I remember the sickening siren sound, followed by bombs exploding. My daddy was driving these baddies away, and he later told us how he came back from Dunkirk with bombs dropping all around and near their boat. He kept saying " Please God get me home to my wife and children." I was five when it ended, and all I remember then was red, white and blue everywhere, street parties, and best of all a new baby brother! ( Sadly I had friends whose daddy never came home as ours did.) Joan ( nee Toller )
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These letters belong to my aunt Joan Punter ( nee Toller ). These contain interesting home front information and political views of the war. They were written by my Great Aunt Marie to her husband George Cruden. ( both now deceased. )
In several of these letter Marie refers to George as Peter Precious- as she was a Catholic from Ireland and didn't want to introduce him to her family as George ( the English kings name ) she called him Peter. Boxing Day [ Oxford Road, Cambridge ] My Own Dearest & Best x Well, here we are — another Xmas passed & we have had a most happy day but one & all were sorry that you were not with us- & of course theres no need to add what I felt & for you to say what you felt- but the fact was that we all had our drinks at 1.30 sharp- in the middle of cutting up the turkey & we one & all drank to you first & we hope that you were able to get a quite minute to do the same with us. We had plenty of drink & the turkey was just lovely. 15lbs. & the plum pudding mum was delighted with the rum you sent. Thanks were so for your Xmas card darling, it was lovely. By the way we had a large size egg flip & guzzled the lot in 2 sittings you boy. Con [ Georges sister, Connie Toller -nee Broom ] had her Xmas tree & it was larger that she has had other years, but the trouble was to get stuff to put on it anyway we didn’t do so bad. Your number was 6 & mine 10. I got a little old parcel tied up with a bootlace, no bigger than a finger nail- & caused some shrieks by its very size anyway, I opened it & what? A blinkin’ penny & two back studs!! Well I couldn’t resist seeing what you had & found three toffees & 2 cigs. Bill [ George’s brother] got a beautiful pink cushion cover, Ivy a brooch, Con some stocking mending silk, others got some bars of chocolate. Con had some candles on the tree & we outed the light & lit it up & Val [ Con’s daughter ] gave us the prizes she was terribly thrilled with that while we all sat round eyes & mouths wide open in anticipation we then played Newmarket & Brown Anchor & Con won 10/- after 2 hrs play. Then we had some music & my heavens what a row!! We just took it out of the piano me- but old Ivy & Russ had a few drinks & were a proper couple of coons- I laughed ( with the rest of course )- till I felt really sappy but you’d have laughed “fit to kill” if you’d have heard ‘em anyway, we turned in at 2o/c am. I got that song called “Yours” so we have had our bobsworth out of that already. Well, darling x have just had a Guiness & wished you everything of the best & only wishing with all my heart you were with us. X Have you been busy helping the other blokes to drinks? Did you have a party after all? Its bitterly cold today but we are warm & comfortable & my word thanks to mother, you wouldn’t think there was a war on. But theres simply no drink to be brought. Well sweetheart, its now dinnertime, good old roast beef of old England & horseradish! Lovely! Well cheerio sweetheart this is just to let you see I’m thinking of you in spite of all this pleasure & noise. Russell [George’s brother - Russ Broom] is not going back until Sunday, so if you get this in time you will know he is not about until then. I shall D.V. be going back on that 5.15…. Russell didn’t get in until 9.30 when he left you, so you see how late trains are. Well, cheerio sweetheart all love xxxx love & always xxx Marie xxx These letters belong to my aunt Joan Punter ( nee Toller ). These contain interesting home front information and political views of the war. This letter is one from George Cruden's mother Ada Broom, who lived in Cambridge.
95 Oxford Road Cambridge August 1st 1945 My dear George, Thanks for letter glad to hear you are keeping well, & trust something will soon turn up for you either a nice shop or a nice house... Bill [ brother ]said he has not heard any more about that house at Harston , there, that big shop for sale & to let the corner of Gloucester Street that said to be a cycle shop and another the corner of Parkers Piece that said to be another house. no doubt there will be lots soon as there are a lot of people going away. Glad you have got yourself a watch for you will get over that, sorry I am not able to send you a cheque to help you on a bit, it is very nice when a fellow & parent are well off though to give help now and again in stead of the other half about. Well dear Marie will be here after Friday or Saturday & it will be rather nice if you turned up to. your loving mother As written by my aunt Val Burroughs ( nee Toller ) March 2005.
Food and Clothing My uncle Bill had allotments where he kept pigs and poultry ( chickens and turkeys ). We therefore had veg and eggs. Chickens was a treat. Sometimes Uncle Bill would kill a hen that had stopped laying and it was cooked in a saucepan as a "broiler". We brought rationed fish from the MacFisheries and rationed meat from Roses the butcher in Petty Cury [Cambridge]. At Richmond Road School, I was one of the children who was selected to recive cod liver oil of malt, administered daily by the spoonful to each child as we queued. A crateful of small bottles of milk stood warming in the hearth in Miss Chandlers classroom. At the end of the war we relished the idea of fruits we hadn't had before, like bananas. At our Victory party in Richmond Road we were given ice-cream for the first time, although a neighbour who worked in a hotel did used to bring home small bars of yellow 'ice cream'. A neighbour, Mrs Kidman, used to spend some of her sweet coupons on me and would give me turkish delight. At the end of the war, the first influx of sweets included 'wrapped soft-centered fruit sweets from Poland-an inch and a half long with pictures of fruits on the paper wrappers. At Easter my mother would make me an Easter egg. She would melt chocolate and pour it into two bakelite egg cups. I remember sitting by the radio, watching these set, placed in front of the radio. They would be stuck together when set. We would go to the clinic at the Methodist Church on Castle Street where we recived concentrated orange juice that you would mix with water. Clothing rationing, combined with low income meant that families were glad of second hand and refashioned garments and bedding. We were thrilled when the Red Cross gave my sister and me a cardigan each because our father was a solider, ( my mother recived a bedspread ). Our wardrobes were never full like they are now. Our blankets had to do for several years and would be passed from one generation to the next. Some of them were thin with no fluff left and often bore the utility mark. Overcoats would be piled on top of bedding to add extra warmth. Coal was rationed. We would awake to frosty fern patterns on the inside of the bedroom windows. When I was confined to the front bedroom for weeks with Scarlet Fever, I remember Miss Chandler bringing some of my class-mates to wave to me from the other side of the road. Mrs Fletcher, the milkmans wife, gave me some jelly- an unobtainable treat! All scraps of food like vegtable peelings were collected in the pigswill bins that were found at intervals along the kerb-side, ours was next to the telegraph pole outside 112 Oxford Road. As Uncle Bill kept his own pigs and chickens, scraps also went to them. I remember the smell of potato peelings boiling on the gas cooker and then they would be mashed into chicken food that looked and smelled like bran. My auntie would carry it to the allotments each afternoon in buckets. A well provided water and I warned to stay away from it. Horses and carts delivered milk, vegtables etc. The milk came in bottles with cardboard tops. If you pressed out the centre you had a ring on which to wind wool to make a pom-pom to decorate clothes or to play with. I remember watching the greengrocers horse eating from its nose-bag outside our house and then tossing its head to reach the remains at the bottom of the bag. Val Burroughs ( nee Toller ) As written by my aunt Val Burroughs, March 2005.
Living with the horrors of war Very early on in the war my father [Ed Toller] nearly lost his life. He was running across the battlefield with German planes overhead. Apparantly he could see a pilot shaking his fist. He dropped his mouth-organ and his prayer book, but, prayed "Lord, let me get home to my wife and children." He did. I remember my mother [Connie Toller] and auntie watching the distant sky to the south of my back bedroom window. My auntie was crying as she dreaded the bombs were hitting Linton ( her home village ) as the sky was lit up in that direction. During night-time air raids the wardens would tell my mother to get inside my granny's house as she would look out of the front door to look out for planes. During day time raids, I remember my gran and mum heaping furniture as a shelter over me e.g. the settee tipped back to reach the piano with me underneath. At night we sometimes slept under the " shelter table" a heavy duty metal table in the living room, with caged sides. Sometimes we would shelter in the cuboard under the stairs where my toys were kept, I don't recall being frightened. One day my mother was taking us out for a walk, pushing the pram along Madingly Road, when a truck driver asked her the way to the American cemetery, he told us he had a "load of guys on board." One of my friends, who lived at the back of our house, in Richmond Road, Eileen, lost her father when he became ill with beriberi through deficiencies in his diet out in a foreign country where he was in active service. Uncle Bill was in the fire service, so was in the front line when it came to dealing withbombing raids. Once, when driving fast he was convicted of speeding! Even fire engines had restrictions put upon them. Of course, it was damaging to family life to have husbands and fathers away for six years. We hardly knew our fathers when they came back. I remember my mother cleaning and polishing the house and making herself look pretty when my father was coming home on leave. Then when his leave came to an end, there was always the sadness of parting. I would stand at the door with my nanna, my fathers mother, and watch mum and dad walk up Oxford Road. We never knew if he would return, of course. The telegraph boy, on his motorbike, was an unwelcome visitor to our road. He might be delivering a telegram of congratulation or good wishes, on the other hand, he might be on a sinister errand with the news that a loved one had died in active service. I remember the day men arrived to remove our house railings from the front garden. I watched them at their devastating work of taking every bit of iron to build tanks or amunition. Those railings were never replaced. Val Burroughs ( nee Toller ) |
Cambridgeshire History Pages:
Contents If you'd like to go straight to a specific article or blog post within the Cambridgeshire History Pages you can click on any of the post titles in the list below and it will take you directly there. Alternatively, you can use the search box above to search by keyword or you can use the index further below. Peter Filby Memory Book 1948 - 2024
Summerfield: House, Street & Area History, Newnham, Cambridge. Newnham Walls (Newnham, Cambridge) Church Rate Walk/Newnham Walk/Summerfield. Exciting Old Photograph Album History of Lammas Land, Newnham, Cambridge (Newnham Park) Brief History of Jesus Green, Cambridge Motorbike Girls, Oxford Road, Cambridge c.1928 Violet Broom & Marie Cruden Cambridge University Press Memories by Elizabeth Toller-Brown Teversham Recreation Ground Elton Community Archives Group St Neots Community Archives Group Soham Community Archives Group Cottenham Community Archives Group Stapleford Recreation Ground The Beechwoods Cambridge Guilden Morden Cambridge. Teaching & Artefacts Ely Cambridgeshire Community Archives Group Stilton Cambridgeshire Community Archives & History Cottenham Village Society Haddenham & Aldreth Blossoms & Bygones 1940s Event 2011 Wimpole Folly 1963 St Giles Cemetery, Huntingdon Road, Cambridge - grave of Ada Hatchman (nee Broom) 1955 Oxford Road, Cambridge Violet & Arthur Cruden Passport 1931 Cambridge George Cruden, Military Cambridge c.1940s Oxford Road Cambridge Family c.1935 1st Camb. Headquarters. Cambridge 1925 Rowing on the River Cam 1925 George Cruden, Russell Street, Cambridge The Wayman Family, Oxford Road, Cambridge George Cruden, Oxford Road, Cambridge Marie Cruden, sitting in back garden of house in Oxford Road, Cambridge Eaden Lilley of Cambridge adverts for household items c.1920's Cambridgeshire Transport Section ? WWI Cambridgeshire Transport Section WWI Cambridgeshire Transport Section WWI Arthur Cruden Oxford Road, Cambridge WWII? Room in Oxford Road, Cambridge. 1915-1925 Granny working at Chivers Fruit Farm & Pye Radio Cambridge National School, Russell Street, Cambridge c.1918 Russell Street, Cambridge and Pimple Face! The Globe Pub Cambridge and shoe money c.1915 Great Uncle Russ and the Balloon 1919 Lilly Langtree & Cambridge War Time Child in Cambridge. WWII Cadbury's Picnic Bar, Adkins Corner Heffers Cambridge Picnic by the River Cam, Newnham c.1984 Castle Hill, Cambridge 1984 The Half Moon Inn, Trumpington Street, Cambridge A Garden of Memories by George Cruden Cambridge War Time Letters - Oxford Road Cambridge War Time Letters Home Front Christmas WWII Cambridge Home Front War Letters 1945 WWII Home Front WWII Cambridge Family War Letters More Cambridge Home Front Letters - Vicarage Terrace WWII The War in Cambridge WWII Marie & George Cruden, The Backs of Cambridge Colleges 1941 Outings During the War - WWII Cambridge Memories of Richmond Road School in Cambridge Cambridge - WWII - Toys, Games & Occupations WWII - Food & Clothing - Cambridge Living with the Horrors of War - Cambridge WWII A Child's WWII Home Front Poem - Cambridge Toller Family Tree Notes - all over Cambs Home Front Letters. More WWII Bombing in Cambridge 1941 Home Front Letters WWII Bombing in Cambridge 1941 Tales from Cambridge Part 2 by Joan Punter (nee Toller) Tales from Cambridge Streets during and just after WWII Wall in a Tree, The Botanical Gardens, Cambridge, 2010 National School, Russell Street, Cambridge 2010 Clunch (Chalk) blocks in wall behind Hill's Road 2010 Russell Street & Cambridge Cattle Market voice recording oral history Punting on the River Cam, by Paradise Woods, Newnham. 2001 c.1988 - View from the Top of Great St Mary's Tower, Cambridge 1983 - Arthur Cruden, Cambridge City Bowls Club, Christ's Piece, Cambridge 1983 - Cambridge City Bowls Club, Morley Cup. c.1985 Marie Cruden, Campkin Road c.1975 - George & Marie Cruden Golden Wedding Anniversary, Campkin Road, Cambridge c. 1965 Visitor's Passport for Violet & Arthur Cruden, Oxford Road, Cambridge c.1975 George & Marie Cruden outside St John's Church Cambridge c. 1975 George Cruden, rear view of 146 Campkin Road, Arbury, Cambridge 25th Jan 1941 - George Cruden WWII Views from the building site for the Cambridge Grand Arcade, during the archaeological dig 2005 Archaeology Field Trip in the Fens, Stretham Pumping Engine, 2000. The Birds Nest at Chippenham Park Cambridge 1999 The Old Walled Garden Chippenham Park 1999 Violet Cruden - nee Westley, Histon, Cambridge 1928 Pet Show at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Arbury, Cambridge c.1979 George Cruden, Russell Street, Cambridge c.1918 Arthur Cruden, Bill Goodes & friends, Cambridge. 1910 - 1930 George H Cruden age 17 KRRC Cadets, Cambridge 1917 Elsie Cruden, lived at Russell Street Cambridge About & how to use:This is a blog page for the archives in my own collection. It includes many of my personal & family archives, tales and scrapbook items to all kinds of general archive items from Cambridgeshire UK. The Categories below are really the keyword index of what is on the Cambridgeshire History Pages. Each is a clickable link which will take you to an article or blog which contains that word or subject.
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