George Polley’s life history, read by George Polley. Chapter eight (4138b)
Highlights in this oral history recording include:

0.00 In mid-1930s building of Abberton Reservoir, in war mined in case of German flying boats landing and used as practice by the Dambusters
3.05 Building of dual carriageway to Feering, 1 track used as Army stores. Armed guards on bikes
06.05 Burning of The Spinning Wheel cafe
08.30 Army Road blocks, bomber down at Great Tey
11.00 New Years Eve. 1941 Called to grow as many vegetables as possible. Insurers insist equipment dispersed so as to reduce risk
15.00 Electric cooker installed
15.45 As more land ploughed more work and equipment required
23.25 Thrashing at Tiptree – German bomber discharges load sprayed with clods
25.24 Baling hay on Colchester Golf Course
28.30 Christmas at Scotties Farm. Little on 1943
29.50 Construction Birch airfield

Continuing the Polley history. This will be page eight, I would suggest, and the years leading up to the war, middle thirties, there was a couple of civil engineering works going on in the area. The Abberton reservoir was being built and I think it was more or less completed by about 1938, 37/38, and we used to cycle around weekends or if we were that area during the work time, we’d see the our steam power engines being used to drag earth scoops backwards and forwards to form the embankments and so forth. The old steam navvies working. This was before the days of the modern bulldozer and that sort of thing.

And of course when the war years came along, it seemed almost as if that was a possible site for German seaplanes to land. So the surface was mined to stop possible landings, or if it was an attempted landing, it would deal with it hopefully. Course that meant the job after the war of getting them cleared up. And one further point I think worth remembering, there was quite a, at one time, towards the latter part of the war, there was quite a bit of a low flying over the reservoir area, and we later learned that it was partly practice runs to do with the bouncing bomb that was used for the destroying the Möhne Dam and so forth in Germany. And these sort of stories of history we don't relate to happenings until the later years when it was permissible for it to be talked about.

The other major engineering works was the making of the dual carriageway of the A12. The first section between Marks Tey, the A12, A120 junction to Feering, the end of what we knew as Prested Hall Chase. And that was quite a, an engineering feat because there again, although we had a certain amount of bulldozer equipment, there wasn't the big earth-moving machines that we know today. And therefore the, what we know as Domsey Hill and that sort of thing, it more or less followed the contours of the existing roads and that was the two carriageways were more or less completed by the time war was declared. But of course, with the cut down on certain amount of commercial traffic and that sort of thing, and private traffic, the one track was able to cope with all necessary traffic.

The other track was used purely as army stores area. The greensward was absolutely at places, was absolutely lined with thousands of canisters that were used in the gliders and for planes that were dropping supplies by parachute and we had the military guards on, but that happened to be part of my route in my courting days when I was travelling from Marks Tey to Scotties farm and I got to know quite a few of the guards as they were travelling up and down their side section of road. They had bicycles that they were patrolling the length of road, roughly three mile of it, but that was very useful in those early days. And at the bottom of what we knew as Domsey Hill on the northern side, against Domsey Brook, there was a thatched property was known as The Spinning Wheel, roadside cafe and stopping place. It more or less became semi-derelict because of the war activities. And then it was, it caught fire. This was the latter part of the war years.

It caught fire and we noticed that there was some of the American bombers that were stationed on the Earls Colne aerodrome at the time were coming home from one of their raids, and we noticed that there was one of the formation broke away and, and circled around. And it turned out that the captain of the aircraft circled, seeing the smoke and flames, and circled the area just to check as to whether it was one of their planes had crash-landed, but of course it was this building, was completely burnt out on that. So that was, it was never rebuilt. And of course, with the thatched roof, it, and it was timber construction, quite a bit of it so it didn't take long for it to be a complete loss. It was eventually cleaned up and but as I say, there was never a re-build on that.

That was that sort of like area, I think we've got up to around about the beginning of the war years otherwise, the army were naturally stationed Colchester and they were naturally doing their training manoeuvres and that round about. Sometimes they would make up a roadblock using some of our machinery, straw pitcher or drum or whatever they fancied they would take from the yard and put it across the road so they created a zigzag barrier for traffic to go through and sometimes they wanted a bit of help. Sometimes they didn't.

We had a, the issue of civilian gas masks that came in the early part of the war years like, so that all the civilians, we had our gas masks in our little cardboard container with a string on. We were supposed to carry them everywhere we went which we dutifully did. We used to hang it on the handlebars of the bike as we went to work and so forth.

One or two crashes in 40, 1940, was we had a German bomber shot down in Great Tey. There's no structural damage to property. And around about the same time we had a Hurricane, one of our Hurricane fighters, crash-landed at Palmer's farm, outskirts of Coggeshall. That was all little things that we, we'd make our way in the evening just to see what had happened and that sort of thing, if conditions permitted.

The 24th of September, 1940, petrol went up another penny a gallon making it two shillings and a halfpenny per gallon. That was the equivalent of 10p of our new money is today.

The New Year, 1941, the old year 40. Janet and I, we went to a so-called evening out with friends Len and Kate Reddick, lived in the cottages up near the dual carriageway so that we stayed there and saw the New Year of 1941, saw that in, and then of course not much bed that night 'cause it was a case of getting back to work the next morning or that morning, whatever.

There was the call for everybody to grow as many vegetables as possible, so of course at Ellesmere we dug up what was the front lawn, planted it up with potatoes, not much a crop considering there'd been all ash and old metal scrap had been buried to harden it up for when it was originally used for the machinery stand.

Then sometime during that year we had the odd bombs dropped. So in the area there was some dropped in the field opposite Windscroft, the one that was eventually to come into our possession as part of Mascot's farm. But, and incidentally talking about Mascot's farm with our insurance company's recommendation, we had to disperse our machinery as much as possible when it was the slack times and there was an odd piece of land belonging to Mascot's farm. It's actually the site that number 20 is, was built on after the war, but we used to pull our surplus machines in there. And we had three or four different spots where we circulated like so if there was a loss through bomb damage or fire, 'cause we were getting incendiary bombs dropped around and there was always the risk of fire damage. So it was a case of getting them around.

And in March of 1941, my sister Phyllis, her hubby Dick was away in the Navy and we managed to get a bungalow round behind what was Matthew's Mill, where the Parkinson's motorbike place is now. We managed to get that so that she could move in and be nearer to us during the war years because she'd got, there was the three youngsters, Derek, Anne, and Beryl, all small. And so it was a case of she came to be nearer to us rather than being up at Ramsden Heath on her own.

In that year, we had an electric cooker installed in Ellesmere. That was another wonderful place of machinery. An electric cooker instead of the oven and the coal fire, or wood fire as the case may be. And that was quite an innovation, that was. We, so as the war years started to develop, there was more land was having to be ploughed and cropped, which of course meant more work for us from the thrashing point of view. So we had to get extra equipment in and new stuff was more or less out of the question because all production had be stopped and more or less put over to the war effort.

And so it was a case of searching around and buying where we could. And we bought a Marshall straw elevator for 20 pounds at a machinery sale at St Osyth. And I remember going with the Saunderson tractor to bring that home one Sunday morning after we'd bought it. It was a non-working day, but that was when we had to do that sort of thing.

We wanted another baler. We managed to pick that up for a hundred pounds in Leaden Roding. That was nine I went and collected that, again with the Saunderson tractor. I left at half past nine in the morning. Went to Leaden Roding, picked the sprayer, and got back home again quarter past nine at night. It was a round journey of 52 miles. Quite an effort with an old Saunderson tractor. But there, that's, that was part of life as the, as I say, the thrashing side was building up.

We hadn't got time for the firewood side so much, therefore we hadn't got use for old Jacko, our old horse, ex-artillery horse that we had. So on the 5th of July, sadly, he went to Colchester market and was sold for nine pounds, 19 and six pence. That was goodbye to Jacko. Where he went we never knew. It was just, the sale was made by auction, but we didn't know who the buyer was. And of course, I, through that year, I was doing my run through to Bedford in the old car to get, machinery spares.

And in August of 1941, we bought a tractor, Saunderson tractor at Rushden in Northants for 125 pounds. That was a round trip of 162 miles in the little old Ford 8. The next day we hired George Ward from Layer Breton to go with his lorry and get this tractor home for us. I went with him to show him where and where it was and to start the tractor up to drive it on. And that was that.

Going on to, I think we were getting up into 1942. Janet, my girlfriend, fiancee, had to go into hospital during the previous pea-picking season. She'd been loading the 40 pound bags of green peas onto the trailer and suffered a hernia and that was gradually getting worse. So it was a case of she had to go into hospital 19th of January, 1942 to have this hernia operation seen to. She went into the, the Essex County Hospital, Colchester. She had the repair op on the 20th of January, and, she didn't get home until the 7th of February. I went in to see her every night. It was some nights I biked in, some nights I went in by bus. If in the blackout the bus didn't see me at the bus stop, it was a case I had to walk home, sometimes there was some of the journeys, there was snow and rain. So altogether we had a general mixture of journeys, but I wouldn't miss going to see Jenny every night.

In February of that year, again another increase, another penny a gallon on the price of petrol to two and penny halfpenny per gallon. That was another increase. It kept gradually going up. Of course, it was all pool petrol, then. There was no separate brands or anything like that pool petrol equivalent to what the main petrol we use today, unleaded. But it was good enough. It all came out the same tank at the refinery.

And, as I said previously, we had to give up the firewood trade because what with the continuous work we were getting, thrashing, baling, contracting, it was taking us all over Essex and parts of Suffolk which meant long journeys to work and worse home after a day's journey, a day's work. That year, Janet's mum had to go into hospital and the nursing home and I'm afraid she was in for at the hospital and the nursing home for a matter of, must have been five weeks, I should think, before she came home. So Janet was housekeeping for her father and two brothers, Jim and Andrew. She had occasional help in, but otherwise it was her war effort keeping the farm healthy and happy.

During that year, I was thrashing at Race Isles at Tiptree, and a few uncomfortable moments. One of the Jerry Bombers had been chased and, decided to drop his load. He broke away from a formation of half a dozen that were heading for London, but our fighters had split them up and one of 'em, I dunno whether he was winged or what, but he decided to drop his load. It was a few uncomfortable moments, what with the, not so much the shrapnel, but the clods and earth flying around. But luckily no damage to anybody 'cause the bombs fell in the field. And there was always something happening.

Went to work one morning at Coes at Poplars or what's known now as Follington's farm at Layer Marney, only to find that my tractor toolbox had been broken open and some of my tools stolen and the magneto on the tractor had been damaged. So we couldn't do any thrashing that day. I had to get a fresh magneto fitted. I reported the, what had happened to the police, but of course nothing ever came of it.

One other bit of interest. I used to, had to do a bit of lorry driving on the golf course at Braiswick, Colchester golf course. The hay, the grass, had been allowed to grow long on a lot of it as part of the war effort to make a hay crop. And Messrs Annings, the local forage merchants, they had got the job of harvesting it, and we contracted to them to do the baling, stationary baler. So of course they were loading the loose hay onto their lorries and bringing it to our stationary baler as we were there and it was my job as, or part of my job, I was actually doing the wiring on the baler and, but as we'd finished unloading one lorry, so it was a case I had to move that away and bring the fresh, loaded one in.

And we'd got six or seven of their lorries, so we got like a continuous flow. And that was my initial step up at lorry driving. Only for a very short distance at a time. But, the unfortunate bit of that was we learned later that Messrs Annings loaded that hay onto railway trucks at Colchester St Botolph’s station, and it was railed, for dairy farmers or whatever to the west country and, of course it was steam-hauled in those days and anything like that had to have the tarpaulins over the top to as a safeguard against obviously rain, but also against sparks possibly setting the load on fire as it was steam-hauled And when they took the sheets off at their destination, it was just like a soapy lather all the over the top at the hay because it was a little bit on the green side when we baled it. And of course it what we call sweated a bit. And, the air couldn't get to it because of the heavy tarpaulins. So the value of that hay was rather lower when it arrived than what it was when it started its journey. But there, that was the luck of the draw. We were in the clear.

Christmas Day, 1942. And Boxing Day, I spent with the family at Scotties Farm being a regular visitor there, my future wife, it was always a welcome. We get onto 1943. It was a continuation of the contract work and inevitable breakdowns and repairs kept me busy. Three sets of tackle to fill up at the weekends and all that sort of thing.

And wasn't anything too much happening, apart from the various night raids that we were having. But we had the different bits and pieces, and then of course, the end of the year came up another Christmas. Instead of spending that at Scotties Farm, I spent it at home at Ellesmere in my bed, I had gone down with flu. So that was where my Christmas 1943 was spent.

1944. We come on to now. And we were, we'd got the Birch Airfield, well underway, construction-wise. The American Task Force had moved in with their modern equipment and all that sort of thing. And when they were putting up the landing lights, the poles around the fields for the sight lines for the landing lights it was marvellous to see the way the six wheel drive trucks, whites, a lot of, they didn't bother about going through a gateway or anything like that. They just went through the ditches, pushed the hedge out in front of them. And I think the American boys, a lot of 'em were dark-skinned lads in the task forces and.