Shropshire Routes to Roots

4. The World Wars

Background

World War Two ended in 1945. With the Home Front, the evacuation and the constant bombing raids, it was not simply those who fought on the battlefield who were involved. Anyone alive at the time has some memory of their involvement, whether at home or abroad. To discover more about the World Wars in Shropshire, go to the World War One and World War Two themes.

Park Hall Camp and the railway line

Park Hall Camp, which you can read about in the World Wars: Park Hall Camp theme, was used as a garrison for troops, and later as a hospital. It had its own station, called Tinker's Green. George, who worked on the railway, remembers working on the trains and what the locals from the nearby town of Oswestry thought about the camp:

It must be getting towards 1947 or 1948. This cattle drover was walking the length [of the track] - as a lot of people used to - to avoid paying train fare and he was killed by the Tinker's Green train. It was just on a crossing about quarter of a mile from the station. It should be in the [Oswestry and Border Counties] Advertiser; the Advertiser covered local people.

[The station was off] Burma road - go to where the black and white cottage is and across the road is a walkway; that was actually the pathway to Tinker's Green station. It was only an ordinary hut, but it was manned 12 hours - all day - because the service train used to run up to about 5:00, and they used to have their own train which used to run every 20 minutes from Tinker's Green to Oswestry. There was a full time booking clerk here in those days. It used to be a two coach train. It ran seven days a week for the length of time the camp was here.

There was a motorcycle track here during the war. I used to come down and watch the motorcycle racing. We used to also play football here during the war with the army teams. Most Sundays we were down here playing football; we used to send a railway team down and play, and they used to supply us with corn beef sandwiches after. There were also one or two very good cricketers that were stationed at the camp. And the most well-known in post-war years was a chap by the name of Len Lenham; he used to play opening bat for Sussex and also played for Scotland. The Garrison Theatre used to be a very popular place. It was open in those days to civilians as well as camp personnel.

It [the camp] was a big employer of the town in those days, a very big employer. It was one of the places...I think that made it [Oswestry] feel the blow [from job losses] more than anything; that and the railway closing down. It was a godsend to people of Oswestry, business people especially. There was a lot of friction [between townsfolk and service personnel] in the area because we had some very big USA camps here. There was a big one [US camp] at Whittington; there was two big army hospitals here, one at Penley [near Ellesmere] and one at Halton [near Wrexham]. And there was always a lot of friction and fighting and that. One stabbing I remember on the Queen's Corner; I don't remember what the outcome of that was.

It was very big...it must have been 4000 or 5000 troops here at the peak. They used to run in conjunction with the gunnery range at Towen [?]. We used to run military trains, a lot of military trains from Oswestry. The Park Hall halt only stopped operating when the railway shut down. The Tinker's Green stopped operating as a station when the camp shut down. As I say, it was built specially for the camp. It was on what we call the high level line, which ran from Oswestry to Whitchurch.

I was actually on this line when they had the big fire here - that must have been in the late 1940s. And then they had the big polio epidemic here but I can't give much details. I understand the iron lung that they used is still somewhere in the hospital. The Park Hall line serving the orthopaedic was a very busy place. The buses weren't available. It was quite a busy place with a train service from Gobowen to Oswestry. That's lacking today, but whether it would take off again today - since the car's come in. I can't see where the attraction [of the Cambrian railway] is, other than it's a steam train, but my life was all steam trains. I finished just before the railway closed down.

[Contributed by George on 16th January, 2004]

Life as a Cable Jointer

On March 31st, 1941 I had my first day with Post Office Telephones as an apprentice at Castle Foregate. I was introduced to my workmates, then we went to Donnington M.O.D. I was sent to work with a Cable Jointer. Taking tools with us across muddy pools in pouring rain we approached a hole about 5 ft deep. At the bottom was two ends of a small cable. As this was lead sheathed over wires insulated with paper a shelter had to be rigged up. This being done, the jointer cut the cables to form a small overlap, and after putting a small lead sleeve over one end started to join the very thin wires to their matching wire, sliding paper sleeves over the wires. When this was done, the whole was wrapped in paper tape, the lead sleeve was slide over the whole and the ends were shaped to fit the cable. The ends were then cleaned with a shavehook. The next thing is to light the petrol blow lamp to melt solder off a bar onto the joint, and wipe the molten metal around the joint with a pad of moleskin. The cables could have anywhere between 7 pairs and 200 pairs.

As well a being underground, the cables were taken into the sheds and run along the girders or the walls. Using ladders, the safety regulations were more or less non-existent compared with the present day. Terminations for telephones were brought out at various places.

Other work was done at aerodromes, doing similar work. A special feature at aerodromes was the cable run round the perimeter going in and out of each pillbox so that if one length of cable was cut you could speak to the command post on the cable going in the other direction. Nearly all these cable trenches were dug by hand and the cables installed the same way...

...[later in the war] I was supposed to go to Burma, but the A-Bomb [Atomic Bomb] was dropped and I didn't get there.

[Contributed by Mr. A Moyle on 1st December, 2003]

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