My father retired in 1938. He'd been 30 years in the police force and in 1940 he bought
this bungalow and we came down here. Opposite and all around was all fields. The first
Sunday we were here we went to church as my father loved his bell ringing you know. While
I was at Lisant I joined the Rangers. I always wanted to be a girl guide but there weren't
any companies when I was around so and I had my ranger badge on when I went to church and
the rector noticed it. He contacted me. Would I start a guide company? I was only 17. I
wasn't old enough to be a captain. He was called the Reverend Longdon so he had a daughter.
She worked at one of the guide headquarters in London and so he got her to stand as captain
although she wasn't here and I was lieutenant and he let us have the kitchen up at the
rectory to meet during the summer and we had the run of the gardens. In the winter we
met in a house just down the road not very far down. I ran the company till I went to
university but when we started we had two patrols. We had some evacuees amongst us you
know because they were evacuees in Wade Bridge. It was very strict in those days not like
yesterday. We used to do drill. We used to march if it was war weapons day or they used
to have days when they collected money or celebrated something. I think it was a war
weapons day. We had some stoves. We sort of how you could cook things out of doors and
we all wore our uniform. We used to collect newspaper and bottles. Sometimes they used
to have mock air raids and we would be patients you know. Mrs. Weeks the wife of this garage
man she started a ranger company here and I belong to that as well and we used to march
in parades. The Union Jack flag with a trefoil at the top and we used to walk from Wade Bridge
to St Breok Church and the flag was put on the altar and Easter we used to decorate the
windows. Good Friday we picked prim roses. You know we used to pick them and bunch them
and then on Easter Saturday we collected moss. Well we used to cover the windows with moss
and then we used to put in the bunches of prim roses to make words. Look lovely when we'd
done it.
