A Peewit in Wartime

A lad, Gordon Rendell, three years old when the war started in 1939, experienced the following six years with a sharp intensity.

An only child, with a father who was involved in engineering and agricultural contracting and a mother who was the head teacher at the local school, he was often left to find his own amusement. Having an enquiring mind and time on his hands, he studied the village characters and was often caught up in their activities.

At the age of seven, he could be asked to cycle over to Farmer Gifford’s to sort out his stationary engine – usually it was the float chamber full of hay seeds again, no problem!

Those were the days of paraffin lamps, cooking on a Primus stove or a black range, and a diet of bread and cheese, eggs and rabbit stew. Roast chicken was for a special occasion only, and sausages used to burst out of their skins.

The history of life in Hardington Mandeville in the 1940s might have been lost for ever if its events had not been stamped upon the mind of an enquiring little boy who, eighty years later, has brought the characters back to tell their own eccentric stories in the rhythmic dialect of Somerset.The stories are not only a history – they are great fun!