Countesthorpe Cottage Homes (2)

A visit to the homes by its most famous old boy, Pte Buckingham VC. Photo courtesy of the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland.

Mrs Sabin: Straight away we knew this war was coming, and we went into the village – what was it, the community centre – we all had to go and I remember having our gas masks fitted there, and we came back. And then in the grounds of the homes there was a board, it had got like a straight piece across the top and they said had gas been used that board would change colour, like that. Then I can remember the first air raid, we hadn’t got the shelters built then and we had to sleep down, bring the mattresses down and sleep in the hall and have just a little night light. And some of the younger ones started crying and the mother says, ‘It’s alright, it’s only a practise, they’re just practising.’ But, the mother and that they could stand from their bedroom windows and see Coventry alight when they was bombing Coventry, you know, the destruction of Coventry like, the sky was all lit up. But they hadn’t used to tell us so much, they used to whisper to each other and when you were little you tried to listen and catch as much information as you can, like that. I think it was towards the last year, ’43, ’44, the American soldiers, or probably air force, they came and gave us a party at the homes and then they paid for us to go to the pantomime. We was walking round at the back of the homes along the main Lutterworth Road one Sunday afternoon, because they used to take us for walks right through to Whetstone, Blaby – they seemed happy times like that – and there was a big convoy of, I’ve got an idea they were soldiers, ‘cos they were paratroopers I think. They were all going by in this big convoy and they shouted to us, ‘Hello, you Cottage Homes kids!’, like that, waving like that. Then, within in a short time, it must have been, was it D-Day when they parachuted them all into France, and the mother was ever so sad, and we said what’s the matter, says, nearly all them boys that come here at Christmas and gave you that party, they’ve nearly all been killed. Ever so sad.

You know, they did give you a lot of, I think a lot of people put a lot of work into help children in them homes. I’ve lots of lovely memories really. After I left in ’45 there was a lady came in and she reformed the structure of how the children were looked after in Countesthorpe. She says it was built like a, what’d she say, a workhouse, the gates was closed at the time, the gates were closed at the end of the drive, so she had them opened up so people could drive through. She said it was more or less like a closed in workhouse.

©EMOHA