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You are here: Home>Events>World War II

World War II

Arthur Waterhouse was born in Wintle Cottages in Madan Road in 1915, the year of the first Zeppelin air-raid on London “...I got my call-up papers on top of a bus - he laughs at this - I was going home one afternoon to see my mum when I heard a motorbike coming along the road. The rider stopped the bus just outside the Bull Inn at Brasted and I heard him say ‘you’ve got a chap named Waterhouse on this bus, give him these papers’. I knew the conductor and he came running up the stairs and said ‘ere you are mate, it’s your ticket’.
I opened it up and there was a thin bit of paper that said ‘report to your nearest depot with all your kit and one blanket’. He said ‘where have you got to go?’ so I told him I had to report to the Drill Hall in Westerham. He said ‘oh dear, well if you’ve been called-up, you’d better go and tell them at work’.
I had to go back to the White Hart where I was working, and I couldn’t find the manager, but the manageress came out of the lounge so I said ‘I’m sorry Mrs Preston, but I’ve been called-up, I’ve got to go right away’.
The manageress just stood there and said ‘Oh dear, and we’ve got a dinner-party on tonight too’ - I just thought ‘I’ve got serious things to do, that’s your hard-luck’.
I went home and got my kit and my mother said ‘I’m coming with you’ but I said ‘oh no you’re not, you just stay here at home’. I went down to the Drill Hall and they were all turning up - they’d had their papers too, lots of them...

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  • Arthur Waterhouse Territorial

    Arthur Waterhouse Territorial

    Arthur Waterhouse was born in Wintle Cottages in Madan Road in 1915, the year of the first Zeppelin air-raid on London “…In 1939 I received my call-up papers on top of a bus – he laughs at this – I was going home one afternoon to see my mum when I heard a motorbike coming ...
    Reference: WH0720
  • Assembled Territorials check at Drill Hall

    Assembled Territorials check at Drill Hall

    Arthur Waterhouse “…I went home and got my kit and my mother said ‘I’m coming with you’ but I said ‘oh no you’re not, you just stay here at home’.  I went down to the Drill Hall and they were all turning up – they’d had their papers too, lots of them…” Mons Bell “…in 1939 ...
    Reference: 0079
  • Assembled Territorials march from Drill Hall

    Assembled Territorials march from Drill Hall

    Reference: 0080
  • Barrage Balloon launch

    Barrage Balloon launch

    Peter Finch “…those were very exciting times for twelve year old boys like Bob Combley and myself – during the time of the Battle of Britain school was optional, so I said to my mother ‘in that case I ain’t going to school’ and she didn’t mind, she’d rather us just be around – we hadn’t ...
    Reference: 0084
  • Barrage Balloon transport

    Barrage Balloon transport

    Barrage balloons had first appeared at the end of the first world war as ‘aprons’ to combat the emergence of fledgeling war-machines in the air, both Zeppelins and biplanes. By 1939, attack and combat from the air was serious business so the balloons re-appeared as a very necessary aerial defence. A major factory for their ...
    Reference: WH0722
  • C Company Royal West Kents

    C Company Royal West Kents

    Reference: WH0721
  • Civilians Identity Card

    Civilians Identity Card

    These and ration books were obtained from the labour exchange beside Sam Harding’s Cafe where Westerham Garage now stands. Don Adams “…you couldn’t go out without your identity card, I’d be stopped three times between Westerham and Crockham Hill where I worked on the farm.  It just built and built, there were tanks all the way ...
    Reference: WH0715
  • Civilians Ration book

    Civilians Ration book

    Rationing began on January 8 1940, with the first items of food being bacon, ham, sugar and butter. In March 1940, meat was rationed, and by July that year, tea, margarine, cooking fat and cheese had also been included.  March 1941 saw jam, marmalade, treacle and syrup rationed and in June of that year, distribution ...
    Reference: WH0737
  • Civilians Ration book

    Civilians Ration book

    Reference: WH0738
  • Delegarde Farm in the late 1920s

    Delegarde Farm in the late 1920s

    Some significant redevelopment took place around the town between 1936 and 1938, including the building of the new fire-station behind the oast house of the then closed Delegarde farm. The farmhouse was demolished, but the oast-house remained and was requisitioned as the control centre for Westerham’s Air Raid Precautions activities. This tranquil view taken in ...
    Reference: WH0718
  • Local Home Guard divisions assemble for inspection in Edenbridge

    Local Home Guard divisions assemble for inspection in Edenbridge

    The Home Guard were officially known as ‘Local Defense Volunteers’ (LDV) and was formed in 1940 in response to Anthony Eden’s broadcast request for ‘…large numbers of men in Great Britain who are British subjects between the ages of seventeen and sixty-five to come forward now and offer their service in order to make assurance ...
    Reference: WH0731
  • Munitions girls in the Sterling works

    Munitions girls in the Sterling works

    Reference: WH0724
  • Munitions girls in the Sterling works

    Munitions girls in the Sterling works

    Reference: WH0725
  • Ordnance Survey map of 800 yard rifle range across the Pilgrim's Way

    Ordnance Survey map of 800 yard rifle range across the Pilgrim's Way

    Reference: WH0730
  • Oxted wartime road sign store

    Oxted wartime road sign store

    Peter Finch “…another memory is of the street-signs all being removed, there were a load stored beside the Corn Stores in Oxted and I remember a big heap of them in the cobbled yard of Winterton Lodge here in Westerham. Nobody was living there then and it was used as the collection point for the signs ...
    Reference: WH0739
  • Peter Finch and Maisie happy days

    Peter Finch and Maisie happy days

    Peter Finch “…I was stationed oversees in Palestine for 1946-48 and promised Maisie we’d get married as soon as I was demobbed and back home. That was quite a drawn out process, as we got detached from our unit by lack of transport – at one point we were declared AWOL and I thought we ...
    Reference: WH0735
  • Queen Mary transporter

    Queen Mary transporter

    Mons Bell “…During the war my parents lived in the flat over the shop (then Wm. Dove the butchers, currently Prelude ladies fashion boutique) and they had five air-force chaps billeted with them from Combe Bank at Sundridge whose job was collecting remains of friendly and enemy aircraft that had crashed around the area. They ...
    Reference: WH0729
  • Ramblers meet on The Green

    Ramblers meet on The Green

    Reference: WH0714
  • Sharps garage munitions staff

    Sharps garage munitions staff

    L-R Mrs Richardson, Mrs Pattenden, Edie Wood, ?, ?, Vivian Talbot [Knockholt],  Les Gorrick [Manager], Mrs Laurence [Brasted], Gertie Dix, Mrs Jones [Cobblers wife, Brasted] Charlie Sharp’s garage (where Squerrys Mead is today) was the other major site of ‘war work’ in Westerham apart from the Sterling Works at the bottom of Hosey Hill. With RAF ...
    Reference: WH0728
  • Sterling girls and Joe Cowell

    Sterling girls and Joe Cowell

    Reference: WH0727
  • Sterling office staff

    Sterling office staff

    Reference: WH0726
  • Victory celebration parade

    Victory celebration parade

    Reference: WH0736
  • Water storage tank on The Green

    Water storage tank on The Green

    Peter Finch “…The army erected two big water tanks – just an iron frame supporting a canvas liner – and they put one on the Green and the other beside the new fire station in Croydon Road.  The fire engine could fill-up rapidly from these water tanks, but to us boys, the fire station tank ...
    Reference: WH0719
  • Westerham's Buffer Depot beside the railway

    Westerham's Buffer Depot beside the railway

    Early on in the war, the Ministry of Food and the Ministry of Supply formed reserve or ‘buffer’ depots from within Command to feed the civilian population, and it often became necessary to share railheads, such as at Westerham, where the Ministry of Supply built a large ‘buffer’ food supply depot, alongside where 6 AA ...
    Reference: WH0716
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