Eric Hammond

Another Child in Coddenham at the time of WW2

Born 1938 and lived at Church Cottages. When the war started families were advised not to stay in homes if there was an air raid, but to go to a shelter where they should be better protected from bombs. My father made a shelter of sorts in the back garden from the back end of an old van that had belonged to Mr Harfitt in the village and which I named “The Huddyguddy”! It was a lot of hard work to dig a pit deep enough and I doubt it would have saved our lives, but he did it with the best of intentions.

There were U.S. Army men stationed locally and I remember seeing a jeep going round the Church corner rather fast, with the nearside wheel mounting the bank and tipping the vehicle on one side with the men thrown out. They soon got up, righted the jeep and drove off. They were good to us children of the village, giving us sweets. We found the best plan was to go to the 3 Cocked Hat and wait till the open trucks came past as they had to slow to cross the bridge, and when we asked: “have you got any gum chum?”, handfuls of sweets were thrown out.

We saw large groups of soldiers marching through the village playing bagpipes. They could be heard before being seen. Also, at one time I saw a convoy of army bren gun carriers parked just down from the Crown corner, spoke to a soldier who gave me a plastic cap badge and a front to back cap, which I particularly remember as it had red tassels. Unfortunately, I no longer have it.

A group of boys including me often went to amuse ourselves in what became known as the Currant Pit, which was on the right of the butchers’ shop on School Road. We had seen lorries backing into the rough ground and dumping their contents out the back. One small girl found a cardboard box, which fell open as she picked it up and it’s contents fell out and to our amazement it was chocolate! I found a string of ammunition which I remember whirling round, throwing up in the air and watching it come down on the frozen ice, where it slid away. My older brother Terry found a pair of pliers and flare case with a flare gun inside, which he set fire to. There were one or two mishaps, with the boy Palmer damaging his hand badly after trying to get a bullet out of its brass case. Aircraft glass was also found at the Pit, which some people made into rings with use of a hot poker.
One of the first cars to come to Coddenham, Dick Fuller, with a Ford 8. I watched as he had to dig out an area to make a space for the car and wheelbarrow loads of soil across the road into the Pit, thereby covering over some of the wartime memorabilia.

We saw enemy aircraft around Coddenham. One Saturday night, I remember as it was bath night which was always and only on a Saturday. I was in the back garden and saw an aircraft fly over towards Shrublands with flames coming out of the back of it. I watched it and the sky lit up as it crashed somewhere near the old Norwich Road. The next day my brother and I got on our bikes, went down Sandy Lane, then turned into the old Norwich Road and just past some houses on the right, on the lefthand side we saw where the plane had come down, having sheared off the tops of the trees. I believe 2 airmen had baled out and were taken prisoner by the Army stationed in the grounds of Shrubland Hall.
Another Saturday, my brother (Terry) and sister (Sheila) and Wally Harfitt were going up to the sweet shop, which was on the right, halfway up the High Street, to spend their ration and an enemy airplane machine gunned up the High Street. They had to crouch down behind a wall. There was evidence of the bullets, as the Crown pub had a hole shot in the wall, but this is no longer to be seen.

We also witnessed one of our own aircraft in trouble, with smoke coming from one of the wings. We then found a piece of the wing on the 3 Cocked Hat. Doodlebugs sometimes flew overhead and having been told that if you hear the engine stop, then it will blow you up. I formed a habit of holding my breath to listen intently for the engine noise.
Dad was in the Home Guard in Coddenham and they met at a hut erected in a field on the right at the top of the Street. It had a bunk in it and dad had to stay overnight once. He wore a uniform and I remember him brushing his buttons and cleaning the barrel of his gun. I also remember watching a small group of Home Guard in the area of The Lawns firing a spigot mortar into the fields towards Lime Kiln. Another time we were sent to look at the bombs displayed on Mr Day’s driveway, that had come down on one of his fields.
Other general memories of wartime and the years of rationing include reading a note left for my mother by my sister who had been tasked with going to the village butcher to buy something for tea, “couldn’t get sausages, have to have eggs”.