Saturday, May 17: Touring the Moorlands

The Moorlands were not what we expected at all. We were thinking wilderness, but it turns out to be a vast, beautiful expanse of some of the most beautiful land you can imagine. The weather made the view misty and foggy so we were unable to capture the vivid colors on film, but you can still get an idea.

As we drove through Dartmoor National Park, we came upon little villages, runaway cows, quaint shops, wild ponies, free-range cattle and sheep, and lovely farms. It was a glorious way to end our vacation.

Friday, May 16: Jim and Margo

My blog would not be complete without a “hats off” to our new friends, Jim and Margo Stanger. God granted us great favor in their eyes, and we could not have hoped for a better couple to take us under their wing. Thanks to their humble hearts and their graciousness toward us, we are coming home with incredible memories and a suitcase full of treasures.

We loved every minute spent with them, and after the loneliness of the crowded city of London, it was a joy to spend time talking with people. Jim and Margo shared their stories of growing up in Plymouth during the Blitz, trekking into the Moors every night for safety, and collecting shrapnel and other souvenirs after the bombing raids. They gave us a tour of Plymouth, pointing out the stony shore-line where the caves they hid in were sealed up after the war, the spot where a bomb landed by the mouth of a shelter and killed all the people inside, the church that got destroyed and now stands as an empty shell in memorial, the house Margo grew up in, the building that housed commanders of the U.S. Army, the RAF landing strips, the moorlands where so many huddled in the dark of night, the gate to the Citadel where mutineers were brought out before the crowds for execution, the horizon where the skies would bulge with the Luftwaffe, the building where all the stained-glass windows were blown out, etc, etc. Without our willing tour guides, we would have looked out our car windows to see gently rolling hills, old buildings, and a pretty iron gate.

Jim and Margo have dedicated their lives to preserving and honoring the memories of the soldiers involved in WWII. By sending me home with armloads of helpful information, I will be richly blessed in my efforts with this novel. All of these priceless bits and pieces of information are neatly tucked away in my carry-on luggage so that I can guard them with as much care as they deserve. The Stangers educated us, fed us, drove us around several towns, and gave us a wealth of information, all out of the goodness of their hearts. Unfortunately I can never thank them enough, but I have decided to name two major characters in my novel after them.

We’ve promised to email them as soon as we get home to let them know we’ve arrived safely. I’m looking forward to our continued friendship and I hope we hear from them often.

Friday, May 16: To Everything There Is A Season (Eccl. 3:1-8)

I’ve spent the last six months of my life preparing for these last two days. Books, documentaries, and pictures on the internet are wonderful tools for research, but nothing can compare to sitting around a table listening to real people speak from their hearts. We were allowed to gaze into the past and see the war through the misty eyes of their childhood, as they carefully chose words to describe the events that shaped their lives.

A time to be born, and a time to die –
Every day there were bombs. You never knew when the Germans would attack, so each day they went about their normal lives until they heard the sound of the sirens warning of impending doom. Time froze and everyone ran for shelter as the familiar droning of the approaching planes grew louder. Many hid under stairwells or huddled under beds and Morrison shelters. Others ran for the caves along the shore. Sometimes they huddled together for hours while the adults made them sing songs. The louder the bombs, the louder they sang. After the all clear, they came blinking out into the destruction, to learn who had survived the day, and who had died. Mr. Griffith began weeping as he explained to me that his family was too poor to have a Morrison shelter (a steel table), and on one particular day their neighbor felt that the bombing would be particularly bad and made his family come over into her home, which was better protected. When the all clear sounded they emerged to find that a bomb had come through their home’s roof, through the bed in the main room, through the floor below, through the living room, down into the cellar, were it exploded and destroyed the house. Had they remained, they would all have been killed. On that particular day, it wasn’t their time to die.

A time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted –
Food was scarce, but they learned to make do. Flower gardens were dug up and vegetables were planted. Moms learned how to make all kinds of recipes using turnips and carrots. There were many American soldiers stationed in Plymouth during the war, and many of those young men were terribly homesick and looking into the face of death. The people of this town always invited them into their homes and shared their meager food supplies with the boys to help cheer them up. They’d also let them bring over their laundry; and the mothers fussed over them as if they were sons. One man shared with me how he was sick as a child, but they could not afford medication; so one of the soldiers came for a visit and told his mother to look down inside the laundry bundle. Deep in the folds of the shirts she found medicine.

A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing –
Mothers had their children ripped from their bosoms and sent away to the countryside for safety. It seemed a good idea at the time, but it really broke their hearts. After many months away from home, the children began filtering back to the open arms of their mothers and the pounding of the bombs. The evacuees became “trekkers”. Every night, the mothers and children would pack up into lorries and ride out into the moors for safety from the raids. They would sleep in abandoned train cars, barns, or tents – every single night, rain or cold, for years. As they sat around campfires to keep warm, they could watch the orange glow on the dark horizon as their city burned again, wondering if their house would be there the next morning when they all trekked back into town to start another day. (Another long pause as Mr. Williams began to weep and wipe away his tears.)

A time of war and a time of peace –
War was hell for the people I met, who, as children suffered the wrath and hatred of the enemy. It has haunted them in subtle ways, but it has also made them stronger than we could ever understand. While it was truly difficult for them to tell me some parts of their stories, each one ended with remembrances of VE Day. Mr. Griffith described how his mother went to use the outdoor toilet, then ran back into the house to tell him she had just heard the war was over. He broke down and cried at the memory as he recalled the happy face of his mother as they joined the throngs dancing in the streets. I wondered aloud if his father returned home to them soon after that, and was relieved to hear that he had. Much had been taken away from this young lad, but his family survived the war and they were reunited in the end. A happy ending for him, but for some of the others….

I said in my heart , “God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work”. Ecclesiastes 3:17

Thursday, May 15: We Thought it Was a Holiday

Jim and Margo were 9 and 10 years old during the Blitz in Plymouth. Both of their parents chose keep them in town “so they could all die together”, rather than go through the pain and separation of “evacuation.” It was enlightening to hear how they survived each day, and how war-torn their everyday life became. They drove us all around Plymouth to show us where they grew up, where they ran to get to shelter, and where all the American soldiers were stationed. (Another note about the small world we live in: It turns out that another couple we are going to visit tomorrow – George and Iris Williams – are best friends with Jim and Margo. They got so excited when they learned we were going to go see them that they asked us to allow them to take us over the ferry to Tor Point tomorrow so they can surprise their friends by showing up with us, then they want to take us all out to dinner!)
They also invited their neighbor and her brother over to meet me and tell me their stories. Sid and Audrey were sent out on the trains after the bombing began, and thought it was going to be a marvelous adventure for children too poor to ever go on a holiday. Later that night they arrived at a station in the country and were herded into a large building to be checked for lice and sorted for all the villagers to see. They were not chosen, so they and their other two siblings were loaded into a truck and taken around to houses, where they were separated from each other and forced upon people who were reluctant and disappointed to take them in. Their ration books were taken away and used by the host family, and they were given nothing but pasties to eat each day. All packages of food and other goods sent to them by their mother were also eaten by the host family and never given to the evacuees. The man and woman of the house would not allow either of them to leave for school each morning until it became too late for them to walk the three miles without being late. This meant the teacher would beat them with a ruler, and the beatings became a daily occurrence. All these cruel things and more were done so that their mother would come and take them home, and it worked marvelously. She came and rescued them from the wickedness they were enduring on the farm, in order to take them back to the relative safety of the nightly raids. They, too, decided they would rather all die together.
The cruelty of the human heart – both the Germans attacking the civilians in Plymouth and the English mistreating the children in the countryside, amazes and horrifies me, and it is obvious it has left a gaping hole in the hearts of these dear survivors. Sid Austin and his sister, Audrey Cook, have a story to tell, and they hope everyone is listening. They thought it was a holiday….

Thursday, May 15: Squirrels

This morning we met with a dear couple, Jim and Margo Stanger. Jim contacted me by email in response to the newspaper article mentioned in the first entry to this blog. He introduced himself and his wife to me as the British Liaison to the American 29th Infantry Division and seemed very interested in meeting me when I got to Plymouth. I sent him a reply letting him know that we would love to visit with him, then I typed out a few short paragraphs introducing him to our family. He responded a few days later letting me know that he wanted the visit to be interesting for Tim as well, so he took it upon himself to set up a tour of one of their newest Fire Brigade stations. I thought that was pretty cool and called Tim right away to tell him the news – and he was appropriately calm with his response that it sounded like “an interesting thing to do.”
When we arrived today we made some quick introductions and they loaded us into their car for our field trip to the Fire Brigade. Tim was obviously uncomfortable in the role of “visitor trying very hard to make sure he didn’t look like a squirrel”. You all know what Tim thinks of squirrels (which is a nickname given to overly zealous firefighters). Some of the firemen came out and politely introduced themselves, then one very friendly chap (that means “man”) took us under his wing and offered us tea at the kitchen table. More polite questions followed and they soon heard from Margo that I was an author from America doing research for a novel I was writing about evacuated children. Ho hum from the firemen. Tim continued talking to “friendly chap” and I sipped my tea politely. Then one of the other men approached me and asked if I was going to visit a man by the name of Martin Griffith. Hello! Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I would be visiting him the following day at 10:00 am. Martin Griffith was the firefighter’s father, and he had mentioned to his son that an author from America was coming to talk with him about his evacuation experience during the war. What a small world! The ice melted, the fire station tour soon began in earnest, and Tim started acting…….. squirrely.
Tim was having the time of his life and it was fun to watch. (Dave Newman would have been laughing his head off at the irony of it all. I captured a lot of it on video for you Dave, because we both know he will try to deny everything.) Tim was looking all around, chattering, giggling, and snapping loads of pictures “for the guys at the station back home.” Uh-huh, right. Then it was time for the firefighters to do a hose drill. Yippee! Tim was snapping away and making sure I was capturing everything on video – for the guys back home, of course. Before we departed, Tim handed out patches, and one of the chaps gave Tim an official officer’s shirt. It was like watching Kenny (42 years older and a little more wrinkly) opening a package and pulling out a superman costume that could really make him fly.
Patches - $2.50; airline tickets - $1300; Plymouth Fireman shirt – priceless.
Watching Tim at the fire station – for me a better understanding of the term “squirrel.”
Note: As I’m typing this blog message, Tim is standing beside me trying on the new fireman shirt and giggling because it fits. He really, really likes it! I admired him in it, as I should, and he is very happy. I just love this guy!

Wednesday, May 14: When it Rains it Pours

Today we awoke to sunshine and a full English Breakfast to start our day. That makes five days in a row in England that the weather has been sunny, warm and dry. Whenever we stop and chat with the locals, they tell us that we’ve come to England at the best time because the weather, for some reason, has been so glorious! (We know why – wink, wink – we call it showers of blessings.) Our complimentary breakfast plates arrived at our table covered with all the things you’d expect to see over here – two eggs sunny side up, a baked tomato, mushrooms, sausage, ham, and a little hash brown potato wedge. Tim took one look at the eggs and muttered, “Yuk!” just loud enough for the waiter to ignore. If there’s one thing he hates worse than onions, it’s “snotty” eggs. But, hidey-ho! What a pleasant surprise! No snot! They were somehow boiled up just right, so the day was not ruined after all. We did scrape the tomato and mushrooms off to the side, but everything else was wonderful. (More showers of blessings pouring down on us!)
Tummies full, we folded ourselves up into our little European car, and took off for Exeter to meet a new friend named Bob Reeves. He was much, much more than we ever expected. He couldn’t have been happier to see us and welcome us into his pigeon museum, I mean, his home. There were trophies, awards, newspaper clippings, special plaques, certificates, and pictures everywhere you looked. He was one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met and he thoroughly enjoyed talking about pigeons. He has been raising them since he was seven, at which time he became very ill and almost died from pneumonia. In a last-ditch effort to save him, his parents asked him to choose anything he’d like to have and they would get it for him. He asked for pigeons, so they bought him four birds and put them in a cage in his room. He quickly recovered, so as far as he is concerned the pigeons saved his life. He has been breeding and racing them ever since.
Mr. Reeves joined the Navy just before WWII, and when war broke out, all of his pigeons were confiscated by the military to use for breeding carrier pigeons. All of the best pigeon fanciers were honored to have their pigeons taken to help the cause. Those fanciers who were not involved in fighting in the war were able to keep their pigeons and raise birds that were gathered by the army to be trained for combat duty. I got lots of information about how that all worked.
We then went outside to see the pigeon lofts and it was fantastic having Bob explain how the coop is laid out and how the birds are trained. We talked all about his methods of training and the dangers the pigeons face while in flight or outside of their coop. I understand the process so much better than just reading about it in a book. To think that just 24 hours earlier I had no idea who Bob was, or that Mr. Jim Stanger had set up the opportunity for me to meet with him. More showers of blessings.
He took us out to dinner (our treat) at a local pub, and then we wished him a fond farewell as we drove off in the direction of Hemyock. Thanks to our Satellite Navigation System, we found it with no problems and even managed to stay on the correct side of the road. Tim is really doing well at driving the wrong way, which is the right way, and my toes are beginning to relax.
Hemyock was gorgeous! We were amazed at the narrow, hedge-lined roads that snake through the countryside, suddenly spitting you out into farms and villages. There is just enough room for two small cars to squeeze by each other, but you can never tell when another car is coming until – YIKES – it comes speeding around the bend. But everyone just jams on their brakes, slowly oozes past each other, smiles and waves, and moves on. It is obviously a way of life and is taken in stride, and we’re getting used to it. I only screamed when we were almost mowed down by three large trucks, and when we almost ran off the road, and when the mirror on my side of the car scraped some branches, and, oh yeah, when I saw a lady walking her dog.
After Tim drove and I screamed for a while longer, we decided to head back into the center of town for our evening meal. (I think Tim just wanted to get out of the car.) We wound up in a little pub that served pizza! It was a nice treat after days and days of eating roast beef and mash. After removing all the onions and taking a few bites, we remembered that on the evening of our wedding day Tim and I went to a pizza parlor and ordered pizza while giggling over the fact that we had these new, shiny gold bands on our fingers. We were so ridiculous back then. It seemed just right that we should now be in another strange town celebrating our special day, even though our rings are duller and Tim giggles mostly about his little “squirt” who is a grown-up little nurse now. The food was great, the people were friendly, the memories were wonderful, and we topped it all off with ice cream. How many more showers could we handle in one day?
Apparently, one more. On the way back to our hotel we finally noticed a stormy horizon, and sure enough it is thundering and raining. But no worries – Matt gave us cute, little raincoats that fold up into cute, little square pouches. They are right here in my purse and we’re glad to have them. Thanks, Matt, for such a thoughtful Christmas gift, and we want you to know we needed them after all. You know how it is in England; when it rains, it pours.

Tuesday, May 13: Evacuation Day

This morning we left the hustle and bustle of London to evacuate to the countryside. We packed our suitcases and rolled them to the Elephant and Castle station where we jumped on a bus heading to Waterloo Train Station just a few miles down the road. We boarded at Platform 7 and settled in to enjoy the changing scenery.
Across the aisle from us sat a sweet, elderly woman named Marian Smith, who was returning home to Exeter. She noticed that I was reading a book about the Children of War and, once we started chatting, her curiosity got the best of her. Eventually we were talking about WWII and the town of Exeter during the war years. She was not an evacuated child herself, but she gave me the name of a dear friend who was, and Marion was sure that this friend would be more than happy to talk with me if I had the time. She advised us of all the charming places to visit in the area, and she made the three hour trip a very pleasant journey indeed.
We pulled into the train station and our rental car agent spotted us as Americans right away because of Tim’s Old Navy tee shirt with the tiny American flag on the front. He led us over to a miniature car, made Tim sign on the dotted line, gave us the key, and wished us luck. He had good reason to be concerned……
We sat in the front seat trying to get comfortable with the fact that everything was backwards, and Tim focused on the fact that he needed to stay on the left side of the road, approach the traffic circles clockwise, watch for traffic to come at you from the right side, etc. Then we backed out of our parking space and proceeded to pull out of the train station into a traffic circle going the wrong way. Suddenly we were circling around counterclockwise and approaching cars head-on while they swerved around us. Every time Tim tried to get out of the circle, we were facing head-on traffic because he was exiting American-style. Everyone in the roadway just stopped while Tim swerved this way and that and got us straightened out. Now I’m sure this whole scene lasted no more than 10 seconds, but we were exhausted by the time we landed on the right side of the road, which is actually the left side. At that point we decided to just stay behind the little red car in front of us, and, providentially, that car drove straight to the exit we needed for our hotel. Had it gone in another direction, I don’t know where we’d be sleeping tonight!
After pulling into our hotel parking space, Tim started laughing about it all, but I still haven’t reached the point where I think it was funny yet. Maybe in ten years or so. We then WALKED down a small winding road that led to a village pub where we feasted on a dinner of braised steak and vegetables. It’s amazing how a near-death experience can make you so hungry. On the walk back we met a nice couple who were delighted to hear we were visiting from America, and they told us of an historic area called Slapton Sands that we should visit to help with my research.
Tomorrow we are going to bravely get back in the saddle again and drive into Exeter. Stay left, stay left, stay left! Our friend in Plymouth (James Stanger) has arranged for us to meet a pigeon fancier who is a veteran of WWII. Tim just called Mr. Bob Reece, who is very excited that we are coming to see him. He told us to knock on his door anytime after 10 am, and if he doesn’t answer we’re to come around the back where he’ll be working on his pigeon coops. Now, how exciting is that?!
After our visit with Mr. Reece we hope to travel into Hemyock to visit the Hemyock Castle grounds and eat dinner at a local family farm/restaurant while celebrating 25 years of marriage. Yes, May 14th is our anniversary and we have much to be thankful to God for: Jesus Christ our Savior, four children who love and serve the Lord, a granddaughter who is being raised in a covenant family and church, and our own dear family and friends who love us with all their hearts and whom we love more than we could ever express. It is God’s faithfulness to us that we celebrate, not our own accomplishments, and we want you to know that you are all a blessing to us by His grace. We are rich beyond all measure. Hugs and kisses from very far away – we love you!