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THE BIRD AND CHILDS FAMILY WERE VEGETARIANS IN WW2

The vegetarian societies had begun to make representations to government during 1937, and in a series of negotiations that continued between 1939 and 1942 certain concessions were gained, chiefly the additional supply of cheese and fats and a special allowance of nuts. Some 50,000 registered as vegetarians during the war, though this number is known to include some from families who took up a vegetarian ration book so as to get extra cheese. Many vegetarians look back on this official recognition and see it as an important stage in the wider acceptance of the diet, They look back also with favour on the war-time diet itself, since with its brown bread and high vegetable content, and with its low levels of meat and sugar, it embodied many of their own ideals.

Our family were vegetarians. Gertrude and Harry Bird started it on health and moral grounds. It was very unusual in the 1930's and 40's. We used to go to meetings of the Vegetarian Society with speakers from Britain and abroad. We took a monthly Vegetarian magazine which had news of events and meetings and reports of scientific papers.
We ate fresh fruit, vegetables, cheese, honey, nuts, eggs, butter, kosher margarine, cashew nut butter, peanut butter, marmite, bread, rice, beans, lentils, dried fruit and nut bars made by Mapletons. Our yoghurt was home made in circle octagonal glass pots in a stainless steel frame in the airing cupboard every night using a culture from the previous day. When this became weak we sent for some fresh culture from Paris by post. No one else I knew was eating yoghurt at that time. It was explained to us that it was good for our gut flora. Our rich milk from Devonshire cows was delivered daily to our door in glass bottles.
Twice a week we went to the yeast shop near Castle Circus Torquay. We bought the yeast to make up for the B vitamins which we missed for not eating meat. We used to eat it with a spoon of soft brown sugar and loved it. We had Bircher Benner Swiss Muesli for breakfast, not like the packet stuff today. Grated apple, pears, bananas or other fruit freshly put on top with almonds, peanuts, cashew or coconut with the creamy top of the fresh Devon milk. We had no fridge so cream cheese was made with the sour milk. During the war we got our meat/bacon ration in extra cheese.
We ate whole grain bread and Allinsons Wholemeal bread from the Bakery of my aunt Dorothy in Kingskerswell, or home made by my mother. Thalia Campbell (Childs)

THE BIRDS

Harry Bird's three sons fought in the second world war. One remained a strict vegetarian and must have had the best diet in the whole of the armed forces. Special food parcels were flown in and dropped at his camps when he was serving in Africa. The other two had to live on the scraps and stale bread rations like the rest of the battalion. When they were demobbed Harry rented a house for them in Daison Heights with wonderful wooden panelling, it wasn't in the family long as Maidencombe House was soon purchased.

A daughter was posted to Bristol to work in a factory they were working in a cave underground and the water used to drip down her neck from the roof. She contracted rheumatic fever and was sent home to Adyar to convalesce, she just lay in a darkened attic room and was at home for six moths, then they called for her again, Harry didn't think she should be called up but they were so desparate for workers. He insisted she went somewhere more healthy and they arranged for her to go to Bath, just under the cliffs where they had a factory making valves the size of light bulbs, she stayed there until the end of the war, then went for a while to live with Norman in Daison Heights as she was homeless after Harry had sold Adyar without telling her.

HEALEY

John Healey served in the Royal Navy

William Horatio Campbell (Ian's grandfather) was the oldest Home Guard in Pembroke Borough and District during the War.
He shot down a German plane that flew low over Pembroke after bombing the docks. He had a gun taken from a fishing trawler in a field along side St Daniels Church on the hill on the south side of Pembroke...The army had their properly built gun emplacements past the graveyard further west.
They are still there. Many from the town rushed up to see the plane. The German pilots were too scared to get out but were eventually taken away probably to do farm work with other prisoners of war. Ian remembers climbing and sitting in the cockpit.There was another plane crash nearby of a Polish crew who ran out of fuel. They were injured and taken into the nearby farm on the day the farmer's son was born.

Ian was born in Gillingham. His grandfather was in Pembroke. The family had a garage in the main Street, taxis,petrol sold with a pump over the pavement. They used to charge up all the batteries for the locals beforemains electric came to Pembroke.


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During the second World war Ian's Mother with the NAAFI served the armed forces food in the Old School Room in Pembroke Main Street. When they were bombed out in Coventry and came here they saw the oil reserves go up in flames... We have a photo of the Chapel at Carew where Ian's Mother Married Thalia

CG Campbell was an Admiralty Overseer based at the Ordinance Depot in
Coventry. As a child I was taken around by him on his factory
inspections. I was given a tour of the factory while he carried out his
business. I saw many war time factories ranging from warships to guns
tanks aircraft from the smallest components made in back street
workshops in the Black Country to finished vessels and components for
Mulberry, for the invasion I watched tests of the rocket launchers used
at D Day. Some of his papers were market Tube Alloys, my mother
destroyed his briefcase with a wrist chain and his revolver when he died
she also burnt all his papers, so I only have memories and half
remembered events. At one factory they were transmitting Workers
Playtime, and I was included whether it was in the live transmission I
have doubts.
In those days factories had Directors and Managers Canteens. In the
largest factories dining rooms with a Butler and uniformed waiters. I
remember Mulligatawny Soup , strong curry flavour and roast beef, foods
we did not get at home.
Chance Brothers where they made optics for light houses made lenses for
range finders, the technology was unbelievably crude relying on skilled
crafts men,the glass was cast in sand pits in black dust filled sheds
open to the air. the grinding and shaping was done by the same technique
as used to polish needles, oscillating machines with hessian impregnated
with corundum paste, made of wood driven by overhead belting.
Guns tested under the tank floor at Rubery Owens factory fired into a
bank of sand, the tank factory hideously noisy full of crashing banging
grinding and welding hell on earth.
The isolated ex dairy near Worcester where they grew the Anthrax
culture. Near by on the main road outside Bromyard the poison gas
laboratory. Demolished these last months the building where the research
was carried out to drill very small holes for gaseous diffiusion plants.
Now two executive houses. The Americans sent over a drill bit they had
manufactured, it was returned with a hole drilled through its length, it
was shown on the Trade Stand at the British Industries Fair, it could
only be seen under a microscope. It was shown as an example of British
technology, with no mention of its use. Later solutions were developed,
they carried out many experiments with sintered metals made of various
materials and controlled crystal sizes.
On his death he had documents and drawings labelled Tube Alloys, the
final assembly was underground at Rhydimewyn North Wales.The poison gas
from Germany was stored at what later became the Asbestos Factory making
brake linings on the road to Anglesey North Wales, before it was dumped
at sea in St Georges Channel. The dump sites can be seen in the Notams
and Naveams of the time in the Admiralty Hydrographic Depot near Taunton
unless they have been destroyeed I did write to the Hydrographer of the
Navy in the Eighties who said I could research the archives as he was
concerned that they were to be destroyed by the Thatcher government.
The Etching presses used to print charts were sold off and several ended
up in a large house in rural wales.
I saw them when we were setting up Mid Wales Intaglio, an etching and
printing studio in the seventies.
My father had a series of stamps with the War department broad arrow,
and CGC small for individual components, when a ships gunnery system was
assembled and tested at the Ordinance Depot he had a larger stamp , when
the ship was handed over by the builders after sea trials his stamp much
larger was under the builders plate. When I was in the navy I saw his
stamp on gun breech blocks and barrels.
The guns were proofed at the Birmingham Proof House and large guns under
the Rubery Owen Factory before they were assembled. The whole gunnery
and control systems were shipped by train partly assembled, larger arms
were shipped by train in parts to the shipbuilding yards.
He walked around with a labourer, who stamped each component with his
stamp. We went into laboratories and testing houses. Heanan and Froude
in Worcester made testing machines, for quality control random samples
were sent there for testing.
A machine for testing tensile strength a hydraulic machine which pulled
test samples in a controlled way as they were stretched and fractured.
The broken sutrface was examined under a microscope to see its
crystaline structure. A hydraulic press with a diamond head was used to
test for hardness by examing the indentation made in the sample and
measuring it on the Brinel Scale.
They developed the largest dynamometers to measure power out put .
I saw those developed to measure the output of steam railway engines and
saw them on test at the Rugby Test House, you could stand right next to
an express engine on rollers running at full throttle. Similar machines
we used to measure the output of jet engines being developed at the
dispersal factory at Ryton which ended its life as the Peugot Plant
which closed last year.
As I grew older my father took me around with him in the school
holidays. I was offered jobs at the Rootes Group Racing and Rallying
Department in several drawing Offices and as management trainee in
several companies.
At school we had a Science Club this arranged factory visits every
Wednesday afternoon, I saw very many industries and went into very many
development laboratories.
Ian

MAURICE CHILDS

Maurice was always appalled at the local corruption and knew a lot about it as
it was often planned in his changing rooms at the shop with the local councillors/ criminals sharing it all with him thinking he would approve of the land deals the backhanders, the town silver stored by an alderman and sold off during the war for personal gain.
Wish I could remember in detail the struggles he had with corrupt bosses in the aircraft industry during the war.he said he was prosecuted during the war as a Communist trouble maker. There must be court records in Bristol and Trowbridge.
Dudley took us round Plymouth to see all the new council houses built by the city after the war. He was full of civic pride as the city treasurer. Gertrude was quite ungracious saying they could have been less regimented and more imaginative.
Whilst Maurice was in the Hospice for six weeks he shared things with us how he resented being put in the shop by his father and was glad to take a reserved occupation doing his own thing making aircraft for seven years. He did this to get into a reserved occupation so as not to go to war. he was quite dismissive of Norman and the others who did not manage to escape the war.He described how Mr Butler his manager ripped him off but he did not mind....
He described his digs in Bristol in a small terraced house with a woman who cooked a stew/soup with water, bones and over cooked vegetables and how Ted rescued him and later living in a small manor house in Trowbridge with grounds and a small chapel full of hens, stained glass window, the coloured light falling on the freshly laid eggs in the straw.There was the base of a gasometer which was full of water, frogs, newts etc a magic place where we had a wonderful time with Ted's three girls Sue, Jenny and Alice . I remember the big old kitchen.and some big old trees. They were very close friends the two families....
Thalia

The war started when I was two and finished when I was seven. I remember walking to Tor Abbey Sands from our first small house 'Little Ideen' at the start of Teignmouth Road with the big green and cream coach built pram with everything in it, either under the rexine mattress base or in the tray between the large wheels. Later with baby Susan in the pram and me a toddler sitting in the edge on a central rexine board. I remember walking up the hill under trees past small gardens after going past the gates with swan statues. We had no car during the war. Then all the beaches were covered with rolls of barbed wire.
As a toddler in arms at Little Ideen I remember the building of the air raid shelter in the front garden and pushing box trimmings in the soft soil to make a hedge ..the box hedge is still there. I remember going down the shelter with candles and matches and the victorian flowered candle stick which I still have. We had two uncomfortable wood framed wire based bunks and a couple of chairs and a tin trunk with Siren suits ,matches,candles and woollen blankets in...
The two tones of the siren the warning and the all clear are a vivid memory as are the different sounds of the engines of German and Britsh planes...
One bombing raid I remember clearly was when a German plane flew around the tall chimneys of Belmont House which was below little Ideen. I remember the young pilots face and his leather helmet. Later I found out he went off low over the beach and the barbed wire defences and shot a man ,a local education officer who lay on top of his son on the sands.
Later still I learned the pilot was shot down.
When I was a student in London in the 1950s I went out with that boy who
was training as a graphic designer, he was very caring having been brought up with his two brothers by his widowed mother.
I remember the grey barrage balloons over the harbour which we could see from our front garden. Another time a hotel was bombed and the feathers from all the pillows looked like snow in the sky. Thalia

The candlestick that Gertie took into the bomb shelter and some shells and a grenade that Ian was given when he went round the factories with his father towards the end of the war.He said they were so heavy in his pockets that he had a job to keep his trousers up!

Japan invaded China on July 7, 1937. This invasion began the second Sino- Japanese War.

At the time when Japan invaded China.There was a resurgence in orientalism which involved Madame Blatvatsky, some one my grandmother Gertrude Goldsmith used to talk
about. It brought about an interest in Comparative Religion and reincarnation in UK...
When I had The Exhibition 100 years of Womens Banners in Bristol Council
chamber we had an 84 year old pensioner talk to us who told us how she
marched in protest through Bristol against the invasion of China by JAPAN, she said she lived in a house that was on the bomb site where the City Hall now stands...All these bits and pieces of memories... Thalia

WATSONS

Julius Rothermel (John Watson) was posted to Grantham for the duration of the war to run the Chemists shop in the High Street.

My father told me that Thalia, my mother's sister, was posted up to Lincolnshire, Irving Slome used to come up and stay at our house for the weekend. Irving was a Medical Practitioner in Harley Street London. Somehow he used to be able to get oranges from South Africa and because my father had a sugar allocation being a pharmacist, to make the syrups for medicines, mother used to make marmalade, we were the only people in Grantham it seemed who had such a luxury! Janice

Even during the war years Ellen John and Janice managed to travel to Devon to see the family.
Likewise Harry and Dorothy went to Lincolnshire, either to Grantham or Butlins Holiday Camps to spend time with their daughter and family. Also Norman visited in 1939.
Other members of the family also visited - Derek Butler, John's half brother who was in the RAF and the Rothermels - all sadly to loose touch over the years....
After sixty years we are gradually finding each other through this website !!!

Stories in the family were told that Barbara Lena Rothermel/Butler came to Devon in the late 30's. She was penniless and homeless, Harry Bird put her up in one of the rooms in Esdaile during the war years where most of the family stayed on and off and some grandchildren were born there.

ROTHERMELS

Blackpool
I was only very small when the war broke out but I recall bombs dropping and the sirens and I do remember a time before shelters were given out.
This particular day the sirens went off around tea time, so it was still daylight. My granma Lizzie and Grandy lived accross the road from our house and when the sirens sounded, it was their practice to open their front door and we all ran across the road (neighbours included) the men were in the Forces of course.
Ir was a sight to behold this particular day, everyone went straight into the front bedroom and dived under the bed ) It was a special one made for Grandy because of the shrapnel in his legs as he couldn't bend his knees) It was also reinforced. So under everyone went but on this day the neighbours had visitors so there were more of us than usual. So only head and shoulders were under the bed and all the bottoms were up in the air. A photo of that scene would have made Hitler smile !

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