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
L-R Maisie Randall with Peggy and Ivy Everest in Oveny Green Farm vegetable garden
Reference: WH0733
Peter Finch “…my wife Maisie chose to join the Women’s Land Army during the war and she worked in the walled vegetable garden at Oveny Green farm near Sundridge with two other local girls, Peggy and Ivy Everest, from Brasted. It was hard work but I think they quite enjoyed it and the foremen whose ...
Reference: WH0732
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
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
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
Peter Finch “…I don’t know whether they suspected another war was coming, but there was lots of building going on just before the war – the fire station was resited at the top of Croydon Road in a smart new building, with a mortuary to the side of it. Outside the mortuary window they erected ...
Reference: WH0717
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
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
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
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
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
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
