Wartime Childhood
by Lord of the Manor, John White 

At the age of five and a half (1942) I was sent to a prep school at Watts House (now Cedar Falls). I rode from Ash Priors to school every day on my fairy cycle, a distance of one and a half miles, and then was terrified to ride back through Bishops Lydeard because the boys of Half-Yard, now known as Quantock View, lay in wait for me. I had to get up to top speed down hill through the village to avoid them. It was wartime so there was not much traffic but I can remember a German bomber flying over and the local air raid warden screaming at me to get off my bike and take cover.

Visits to Taunton were quite a special event, either by Hank's bus or with my mother if she had enough petrol for the car. At that time I used to collect car numbers as there were so few vehicles around, and I remember being greatly excited when I had reached 100.

 In the latter stages of the war the Americans made a big impression on us. One of my great pleasures was to sit on a gate by the drive to Sandhill Park, which was then a US Army convalescent home, and watch the huge American lorries coming and going. We used to shout "Got any gum chum", whereupon the GI's used to fling out sweets, gum and fruit to us. It was the first time I can remember seeing an orange, so, with great delight I bore my prize home to show my mother. Much to my surprise and disappointment she was livid, saying she did not want a beggar for a son and I had to go back at once and return the sweets and fruit to the Americans. With tears streaming down my face I tried to do this but the Yanks could not understand what I was trying to do, so finally I threw the fruit away, but hid the gum in the hedge to be collected at a later date.

My other memories of the Yanks was in Upper High Street in Taunton where I saw a huge black American soldier staggering around, obviously drunk, whereupon the US military police arrived and set about the man with their truncheons in the most vicious manner until the poor fellow finally collapsed and they heaved him up into the jeep and drove off - alive or dead I will never know.

VE day arrived and we had two extra days school holiday. In Ash Priors we had a great ‘social’ in the village hall to be followed by a bonfire on the Common. However, half way through the social a great shout went up; the boys from Lydeard had set alight to the huge pile of wood, much to the rage of the locals. A posse was mounted to lynch the perpetrators, but they had quickly disappeared in to the darkness.

In 1946 first class cricket started again. In those days, the professionals coached sons of members in the Easter holidays, before the start of the season. Harold Gimblett used to coach me and he became my hero for the next ten years. Somerset was a great side in '46 with Wellard, Andrews, Buse and Hazell all names to be conjured with. Once the holidays came I was always at the County ground and was allowed to bowl at the professionals in the nets. During the lunch intervals I used to go off to the British Restaurant in East Reach (next door to Rowcliffes Garage), where the food was subsidised and one could get a large bowl of thick soup and a roll and butter for sixpence. There was another of these restaurants in the building now occupied by SCAT central, but sadly, both were closed in the late forties and cheap subsidised food was no more.

Taunton at that time was still a textile-manufacturing town, with six shirt and collar factories, a work-clothing factory, and two glove factories situated in various parts of the town. Advertisements in the Gazette for machinists always meant sewing machinists. Van Heusen was the dominant firm, based in Victoria Street with branches in other small towns in the area. I joined the family shirt and collar making business in 1963, after having served as a soldier for eight years in the Somerset Light Infantry - I was one of the last three regular soldiers to be commissioned into the County Regiment before it was merged with the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. Clothing manufacture, which was and still is extremely labour intensive, was then already in decline as low cost imports began to make their presence felt on the home market. However, for the next thirty years it gave me a decent living and the opportunity to work in one of the most pleasant areas of England.

Taunton has grown out of all recognition from my youth and is, in my opinion, unable to decide whether it is fish or fowl. The City Fathers will need the wisdom of Solomon to get the future expansion of Taunton right, making it a place in which one wants to live and work without spoiling the delights of the surrounding area. If they fail in this task I have a feeling that the town and Taunton Deane will become a dormitory for Bristol and Exeter. I wish them well, for Taunton has a special place in my heart.  

John White