Tag Archives: Thorley Road

WWII Canadians at Rofford House: Delia Whitehead

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War Time at Rofford House in Thorley Road

Now during the war, Rofford House in Thorley Road was used by service men. One day Granny Hunt and Aunt Alice and I were sitting in the kitchen at Downs View, Thorley Road, when suddenly the back door opened and two young men with shirts over their arms walked into the house, much to our surprise. One looked at Gran and said: ‘ Hello Ma, we are living in Rofford House. Can we borrow your iron?’
The other one explained they were (I think) Canadian. They had dates with two young women that evening, and there were no irons in Rofford House to iron their shirts.

Gran went out to the shed and came back with two flat irons because this is what she used then, and said: ‘They will take a while to heat up, boys, I have to put them on this range.’ Their faces were a picture. ‘What are they, Ma?’ one said. They could not believe it when Gran explained. They had had electric irons for years at home they said.

Gran decided if they tried to use the irons there would be two young ladies, with young men who had shirts full of holes, so she did it for them. Next day they came back and brought Gran several packets of biscuits. She said, ‘I can’t take them, it’s not right when things are rationed.’ They laughed and said they had plenty. Gran did bits of ironing for them and Gran got several lots of biscuits and then one day they came to say they all had to go back to the mainland.

They certainly had a forward approach but they were very nice young men. It seems that people just walked in and out of people’s houses in their home town. It seemed rather strange to us but then lot of things were strange in the war years.
Delia Whitehead nee Hunt b 1934

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.