ALEC PECK
aLEXANDER pECK
Alec was 7 years old and living in Burnham Market with his parents and sister when WW2 broke out. He remembers listening to the announcement by Neville Chamberlain on the radio, and then seeing his father outside talking to Mr Nudds their neighbour. Both men were upset. Having served in WW1 they questioned what they had fought for and why so many men had sacrificed their lives if it was all to happen again.
Soon after war was declared the Territorial Army was called up. The young men of Burnham climbed onto George Hubbard's bus near the Post Office. Alec remembers Bob Havers and George Powell getting on board. A conjurer who owned an accordion played tunes and the bus was waved off by a large number of villagers.
Listen to Alec talk about the start of the war here
Local Defence Volunteers
On 14 May 1940, Secretary of State for War Anthony Eden made a broadcast calling for men between the ages of 17 and 65 to enrol in a new force, the Local Defence Volunteers By July, nearly 1.5 million men had enrolled and the name of this people's army was changed to the Home Guard. At first a rag-tag militia, with often make-do uniforms and weaponry, it evolved into a well-equipped and well-trained army of 1.7 million men. Men of the Home Guard were not only prepared for invasion, but also performed other roles including bomb disposal and manning anti-aircraft and coastal artillery. Over the course of the war 1,206 men of the Home Guard were killed on duty or died of wounds.
BURNHAM MARKET ANDERSON SHELTERS
The Home Guard
BURNHAM MARKET HOME GUARD
Burnham Market had a Home Guard which was very much like Dad's Army. The local Chemist Gilbert White and the Baker Ernie Hammond were in charge. Neither had any military experience. Alec's father who had fought in WW1 refused to join and instead became part of the bomb disposal team. Alec used to watch the Home Guard march through the village and take part in exercises.
From the Lynn Advertiser Dec 18th 1942
BURNHAM MARKET HAND GRENADE TRAGEDY FOR HOME GUARD
Killed
Corpl. Albert Robert Batterbee (28), tractor driver, 3 Council Houses, Church Street Burnham Market, was killed during practice bomb throwing at a weapon training school on Friday. A hand grenade fell among a group of 14 officers and N.C.O.'s of the Home Guard who were receiving instruction, and 11 men were injured and two escaped injury.
At the inquest on Batterbee at Docking, on Tuesday, Lieut. Ingram told the Coroner that a grenade thrown by a Home Guard officer accidentally went to the right instead of falling in the target area.
The coroner was shown a grenade and commented 'They are not easy things to throw'
A verdict of 'Accidental Death' was recorded
Alec remembers the Anderson shelters that were provided for the houses in Burnham. Each one had to be assembled and then placed in a 4 foot hole. The soil from the hole was used to cover the top. Thankfully theirs was never needed and Alec's family used it for storing coal. At the end of the war Alec's father bought it from the government for £1 and converted it into a workshop.
Listen to Alec talk about evacuees and Anderson shelters by clicking on the link.
Evacuees leaving Waterloo Station
Evacuation poster from the London Underground
Evacuees AND SCHOOLING
Evacuees arrived in Burnham Market, mostly from Hackney and Shoreditch, and Alec remembers the Nichols brothers who were billeted in the house next door. The local school could not accommodate all the extra pupils and so local children attended mornings one week and afternoons the next, alternating with evacuees . Alec says that the Londoners thought they were harder and the result was that there were scraps between them and the local lads.
An account by Doris Bridge who was evacuated to Burnham Market
I was evacuated at the age of 12 from Shoreditch Central School, London to Burnham Market, Norfolk in 1939. I returned to Islington, London in 1942. The teachers from my school in London decided to take a farmhouse and to train us ready for a working life when we left which, in my case, they certainly did. I found evacuation a traumatic experience but, being observant, I realised that it was the last time I would see village life as it was. The "add-ons" was the turning of a cowshed into a picture house mainly to entertain the troops who were also billeted around - they called it the O-so-cosie! Every time I see Dora Bryan I also see her in her younger days on the screen in Burnham Market advertising ice-cream. After paying a penny entrance fee there was not much chance of buying ice-cream even if there was enough to go round. Health and Safety would have had a fit as the seats were pressed up against the wall with no gangway! The talkies were most primitive too. In the three years I was there I never saw a doctor or a dentist and there were no books either. It was also water from the pump and indescribable toilets but we survived even if it marked us for life.
KEEPING UP WITH THE NEWS
The Headmaster had a map of Europe in the classroom and he kept the school informed about troop movements and the battles that were happening in the war.
Rationing food AND Farming
Alec remembers the rations per person were 2oz butter, 1oz cooking fat, 4oz margarine, 2oz bacon, 4oz sugar, 2oz cheese. Farm workers though were allowed 12oz cheese.
Living in the countryside meant that obtaining food was easier than in urban areas. Most people had gardens or allotments where they grew vegetables and kept chickens, and sometimes rabbits and pheasants were available from the local gamekeeper.
HARVEST TIME
At harvest time all the local lads, aged 10 or more abandoned school to help get the crops in. Farming was labour intensive and the days were long. It was usual to work from dawn to dusk whilst the weather was good. Boys of school age were employed as 'Hold ye' boys and their job was to shout warnings to the men on top of the wagon to hold tight. LISTEN HERE
LAND GIRLS
Landgirls replaced some of the men who had joined up. They were not always prepared for working on the land and Alec remembers one particular occasion when one of the girls was unwilling to walk through some mud and asked to be carried. She exclaimed that she would reward whoever carried her with anything he would like and she was very taken aback when the request was for 10 cigarettes!
HOME COOKED FOOD
Alec can remember a time when he was playing by the church. A despatch rider and a lorry pulled up. 'Can your mother cook boy? ' Alec was asked. They had somehow got some meat and vegetables but nowhere to cook it. Alec rushed home and his mother obligingly cooked them their food and to their delight she also produced a pudding.
Listen here to Alec food
BURNHAM MARKET HELPS WITH THE WAR EFFORT
In a July 1940 broadcast, the first wartime Minister of Supply, Labour MP Herbert Morrison, implored: “I ask people to start now and save their paper, bones and scrap metal. In that way, we shall build up a great reserve of raw materials ready to be transformed into war materials.” The public response was overwhelming. and people in Burnham Market did all they could to donate metal to the war effort. Alec recalls that pennies were lined up in the streets and iron railings were removed.
Two WW2 posters advertising the need for scrap metal
plane CRASHes
Alec remembers one dark night there was a very large explosion. His father called out to his mother to get the children out of the house quickly as Burnham was on fire. Alec looked out of his bedroom window to see a large red glow. A Wellington bomber had crashed about a mile from the village in Mill Wood. The pilot and crew perished.
Listen to Alec describing the war in Burnham by clicking on the link WAR
Wellington bombers
In 1944 Alec heard a Mustang overhead flying towards the sea. The pilot had bailed out and the plane crashed in a field somewhere towards Burnham Thorpe. The American pilot was accosted by a villager as he strode across the field. She demanded to know whether he was a German.
An American Mustang fighter with its crew
Listen to Alec describing the Mustang crash by clicking on the link Mustang
a trip to Cambridge
In 1945 Alec took a trip to Cambridge by train with his father, to stay with his Uncle who ran the Regent Hotel. Here he describes the American troops he encountered . LISTEN HERE
American servicemen in Cambridge 1943
a german attack
Alec recalls a machine gun attack from a German plane targeting an oil depot in Back Street as it flew towards Stanhoe. It fired on Rosie Parsons and her son Bob. They fled into a field and the plane headed towards the railway station where it dropped a bomb, missing the station by about 50 feet. The crater that formed was a magnet for the villagers who came out to see the damage. If the plane had returned half an hour later it could have killed half the population . The plane was later shot down over the North Sea.
PRISONERS OF WAR
Alec remembers cycling to Wells via Holkham. There was a POW camp near the church where the prisoners lived in wooden huts. They would sit on the wall in their dark brown uniforms and wave to people passing by. The POW hostel at Holkham was an outpost of camp 82 situated at Hempton near Fakenham. Originally it housed Italians and later Germans. Alec remembers an attempt to steal the lifeboat. On the night of 5 January 1946 seven German prisoners of war, impatient to get home, stole a lorry and drove to the lifeboat house, broke open a window and tried to start the engine of the lifeboat but gave up the attempt. The men were arrested when they returned to the lorry
From July 1941, Italian prisoners captured in the Middle East were brought to Britain. Italian POWs presented one way of alleviating labour shortages, particularly in agriculture. Following the Italian surrender in 1943, 100,000 Italians volunteered to work as 'co-operators'. They were given considerable freedom and mixed with local people.
German prisoners flooded into Britain from the summer of 1944 following the D-Day landings in France. Although there was an initial reluctance to employ them for labour, 70,000 were working in Britain by March 1945.
Burnham Market station
Italian Prisoners of war working on the land guarded by one British soldier. Painted by Michael Ford in 1942 courtesy of Imperial War Museum
The remains of a spigot mortar base at Burnham Overy
COASTAL DEFENCES
Alec and his friends used to go up to the gun emplacements in Mill Wood where they hunted for pieces of shrapnel. They also watched the movement of tanks. The soldiers were friendly and did not mind the boys being around them.
Some Canadian troops were stationed near Burnham and were very friendly towards the village boys. One soldier in particular who was an excellent ice skater took some of the lads to skate on Holkham Lake.
THE FALLEN
Several of the young men who left Burnham at the start of the war did not return. Alec has a vivid memory about the death of Victor Francis. It was a week day and Victor's nephew Tom Smith arrived at the school to give Victor's son Tony Francis the terrible news that his father had been killed on HMS Hood.
Alec remembers that Tony was taken out of the class by the headmaster and given the dreadful news.
The names of the fallen are recorded on the war memorial under the text
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13)
The Lynn News February 9th 1940
Victor Stimpson is amongst those reported missing from the minesweeper 'Sphinx' which sank last weekend. The missing man was son of Mr P. Stimpson postmaster at Burnham Market, and had been in the Royal Navy over twenty years. He leaves a wife and two boys. Although he had made his home in Scotland he was a frequent visitor to his native district.
FAMILY LOSSES
Four of Alec's cousins served in WW2. Here he describes their service and sacrifices. LISTEN
Alec aged 17 on joining the Fleet Air Arm after the war
AFTER THE WAR
Alec and Brenda have lived in Kettlestone for many years. Here they are dancing together in Kettlestone Village Hall.