Eileen Lansdowne, working at Mills in Yarmouth before WWII, joined the ATS
Eileen Smith in ATS uniform
and on leave in 1945, married Ralph Smith who had left Mills to enlist in Princess Beatrice’s Own in 1939,
Eileen Lansdowne marries Ralph Smith 1945
Ralph’s experience working as a pork butcher in Mills before joining up, came in handy.
The last Christmas Ralph’s lot were fighting in Italy, they were near a farm. Apparently the farmer, who kept pigs said he hated the British.
279’s Commanding Officer said, ‘Right, we’ll have one of those b….s for Christmas dinner.’
He asked if anyone knew anything about killing and preparing pork, so Ralph said he was a pork butcher. The officer shot the pig, Ralph prepared it and a lovely meal was had by all! Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921
August 29th 1941 I enlisted in the A.T.S.at Portsmouth. I didn’t want to wait to be called up, I wanted to have some say in what I did. No, I didn’t ask my parents’ permission! They wouldn’t have stopped me.
I was away for 4 years, as Predictor on Ack Ack Anti Aircraft guns, and ended my Army Service on September 17th 1945.
Eileen Smith in ATS uniform
I really enjoyed my time in the ATS, made some good friends, saw good times and bad – but not so many bad times as Ralph. I hope none of the children has to go to war.
Eileen Smith
Eileen’s service took her to Chester, London’s Dockland, Hyde Park, Hastings and coastal defences against ‘Doodlebugs’, Belgium with British Liberation Army, dealing with V2 rockets and eventually to Taunton to be demobbed.
When war broke out I was working in Mills Grocers shop and driving their delivery van. Ralph Smith, who worked there too, was a pork butcher. He and I were near enough courting (and married 1945). He joined the Isle of Wight Territorials, ( Princess Beatrice’s Own) at Freshwater on March 4th, 1939 and was mobilised at the end of July and stationed first of all at the Needles Battery, on Coastal Guns.
Ralph manned a Lewis gun during the Battle of Britain, served in Algeria, Medjes el Bab, Tunisia with the Ist Army, in Italy, Monte Casino, Tel Aviv, Palestine, Greece, back to Italy before VE Day. After VE Day, he was sent to Klagenfurt, Austria, Germany and Belgium. He was demobbed on March 1st 1946.
Ralph Smith on rest camp near Cairo after 6 months at the line in Tunisia: Photo Eileen Smith
Wellow Institute Darts Champions 1971 – 72 From left: Geoff Bishop, Charlie Courtney, Mike Smith, Ralph Smith – all Thorley men with Archie Pocock, Glad and Vic Whittingham from Wellow
We used to go up to the Wellow Institute playing billiards or cards or whatever, the lads and myself, and I came down one night back with my bike, I must have been fifteen, and it was a dark night, just gone ten o’clock, just a little bit of light. I had my head down looking at the ground, and all of a sudden, there was this shape in front of me and ‘bang’. The front wheel went straight between Charlie Bryne’s legs, Ron Hillier was helping him home. Yes, they’d had a couple, or several, and I went over the top of Charlie Bryne – didn’t do the bike a lot of good, but it did me a lot more harm, it really hurt. Charlie got up, the air was somewhat blue. Apart from bruises up his back he had nothing wrong with him. I got home and put my bike away and I’d taken the top off one of my ankle bones.
And I thought: ‘I’ve hurt my head’. There was all blood and went to see Dad, who was listening to the radio and he come and had a look. He said, ‘Mother, I think you’d better come and have a look at this.’ So mum came out in the kitchen – ‘ Oh, I don’t like the look of that’.
Poor old Gran, who was staying with us at the time, she came out and she put it right. She got the scissors out and then cut my hair away and put a plaster on it. The damage to my ankle made me limp for a while. Charlie Bryne, he was fine.
Ron Wallis b 1935
Jean Smith marries Brian Saunders, May, 1980: Photo Jean Saunders
When Jean and Brian were married at St. Swithin’s Church, Thorley, local village children came to watch. Jean invited them all to join the occasion and be included in the photo. This is the result – a true village celebration.
Front left: Louise Cowley, Anna Vinycombe,
Back row from left: Thomas Cowley, unknown, Kim Weston, ?Roberts, (Brian and Jean), ? Roberts, Mandy Bruce,Zoe Weston, Lee Weston.
Jean’s parents both looked after church and churchyard for many years, Ralph taking care of the churchyard and maintaining its wild flowers, Eileen looking after the church itself as verger.
Eileen’s grandfather, Jean’s great grandfather, Robert May, was verger at St. James Church Yarmouth for over 40 years.
Thorley from Broad Lane
The Smith family
Ralph and I had applied for a house in Yarmouth, but with no success. Then one of the chaps who was offered a house at Thorley, turned it down because it was too far from the shops. We didn’t mind!
The women in the cottages opposite North View, Elsie Squibb and Miss Drake, came out and said they didn’t want Council Houses in the village. We said, ‘Dont you think that people who have done their bit in the War, deserve somewhere decent to live?’
Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921
When Ralph came back from the war, he didn’t want an indoor job so he went to work at Wellow Farm, and we lived in one half of Blacksmith’s Cottages. That didn’t last long. Ralph had arranged to play cricket one Saturday when they’d been told they would have the afternoon off. The foreman changed his mind and told him he’d have to stay on, haymaking. Ralph told him the hay wasn’t fit, and he’d committed to play in the team. The foreman told him to collect his cards, and we had to move out of the tied cottage. We moved back to stay with my parents in Yarmouth, and applied for a Council House. Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921
Ralph Smith as a boy, with Mr. Kingswell of Wellow Farm in the rickyard with lurchers ready for hare coursing, 1920s
My earliest memory of Thorley is from when we lived at Blacksmiths Cottages, the one nearest the church. We didn’t have an inside toilet there, only an Elsan chemical toilet in the shed. As I write this I can smell it even though 63 years have gone by since I last used it!
Blacksmith’s cottages 2013
Peter Smith b 1946
St Swithin’s Church, Thorley
Thorley churchyard spring
When Bert Welstead got too old to be able to look after the churchyard, Ralph took over from him and carried on the good job of looking after the wildflowers that make Thorley special. He was asked by visitors on one occasion why he didn’t keep the grass mown shorter; it looked untidy. He didn’t think much of them; they wanted St Swithin’s churchyard to look like a garden lawn. Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921 ( Thorley’s churchyard is recognised for its wealth of wildflowers, and the care that has been taken to conserve these through the years.)
Broad Lane above Thorley, looking towards Yarmouth and the Solent
Broad Lane
The fields at the top of our garden at North View were owned by Wellow Farm and although they were large, they still had hedges. Sheep or beef cattle were often grazing the fields and I remember going with my Dad ( Ralph Smith) to visit a shepherd up Broad Lane who was living in a field in his shepherd’s hut. This was a wooden hut on wheels that had steps up into it at the back. It had a primus stove for cooking, an old table and chair, and a makeshift bed. It was all very basic but the shepherd seemed happy enough to live there.
A few years later all this changed when the hedges were grubbed out by a crawler tractor to create huge fields. It was the first time I had seen a crawler tractor and I remember being impressed by the sheer strength of the machine as it grubbed the hedges out. The technique used was fairly brutal: an assistant would wrap a length of chain around the trunk of the bush to be removed and the driver would haul it out, roots and all. Later all the hedging was burnt. The crawler used was not a nice shiny new one, it looked dirty and well used. It was something of a mystery to me about how the steering worked as it had no steering wheel.
From time to time, and especially noticeable during school holidays because we were always around, were sudden loud explosions. Mum used to say “That’ll be Uncle Joe again,” meaning that Uncle Joe (who was the last Newbridge Blacksmith) had gone to work at the Quarry at the top of Broad Lane. There they used explosives to blast out the chalk so that it could be dug up and crushed for roads and other uses. The explosions varied from a dull thud to a loud window rattling noise even though we were over a mile away as the crow flies.
Peter Smith b 1946