Tag Archives: Mills delivery van

Eileen Smith: WWII 1939, 1940 ARP

I was in the A.R.P. and so if I was on duty in the evenings, I went to the Town Hall, which was sandbagged all round, and passed on phone messages to Newport Headquarters.
I remember coming down the High Street in the dark one evening with my dad. The police came out of the Police Station with guns drawn and shouted, ‘Halt! Who goes there!’
My dad shouted back, ‘Dont be such a silly b … Percy! You know who we are!’

ARP log,Yarmouth Police flag

ARP log,Yarmouth Police flag

One day when I was working in s, a Bren Gun carrier was being driven round from Bridge Road to go up the High Street. They misjudged the angle and took the window opposite in Hardwoods clean out!

When I was out driving Mills delivery van along Thorley Road one day, there was a row of incendiary bombs that had been dropped to try to set fire to the harvest.
I had to drive up Hamstead Road with deliveries in the dark, with just a slit of headlight, trying to miss all the ruts. Because it was wartime, we were supposed to remove the rotor arm each time we stopped, so no enemy agents or paratroopers could steal the van. I think I did it once….
There was an ammunition dump between Pigeon Coo and Hamstead that I had to drive past when I was delivering. They always made me stop and show my identity papers although they knew who I was. I think they were bored because they didn’t see many people.

Eileen Smith: Shops, Mills 1930s

Mills' staff c 1936

Mills’ staff c 1936

I started work in Mills two weeks after I left school. Mr. Mills himself taught me how to weigh out tea, sugar, raisins and currants, into paper bags, and then turn the top down. The weighing had to be done really accurately, with balance scales and weights, because you never knew when the Weights and Measures man would call in to check. Brown sugar was difficult because it used to dry out and the weight would change.

New Zealand butter came in large tins and had to be weighed out into blocks of 4oz. You had to be quick otherwise it went squidgy, ugh! We had marble counters to keep it cool.

Some customers would call in at quarter to eight, just before we shut, and want all their groceries delivered before we closed, even if they lived just opposite. Some of them had lists, others used to lean over the counter and whisper ‘2 oz of tea’ so no one knew they weren’t ordering much.

I learnt to drive the delivery van in 1940 – had to drive all round Cranmore Avenue and Hamstead. The first day I went out on my own, I had a puncture after I’d delivered up the lane at Lee Farm. By the time I’d changed the wheel, my hands were filthy and black, so I knocked on the door and asked Mrs. Stallard if I could wash my hands.
‘No you cant!’ she said, so I had to drive all the way back to Yarmouth to wash my hands.
 Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921