Stacking Timber

A Memory of Boston.

In the war years my father drove a lorry or a tractor for May & Hassle timber importers. He would pick up men at various places around the town with his lorry which had a hut on the back. Timber was stacked around Lincolnshire at different sites; such as Scredington, Silk Willouby, Evedon, Bloxham, Ruskington, Ewarby, Howel, Aswarby Station, Cowbridge, Dancers Bank Kirton End, and others, to avoid being destroyed by air attacks.
The hut was taken off the lorry and used as a tea hut, and as a shelter if it rained, it was also used as a card school at lunch breaks, that time of day; lunch was bread and cheese, with a jam pastie mostly.
I loved going to Scredington and Aswarby Station. I had a fascination for birds nesting, I would collect Water Hens eggs if possible, gather brambles, search for mushrooms, fetch water from a farm at Scredington; draw it up with a pump, it always had a funny smell to it; I would scrump apples at Asgarby Station if the Station Master wasn't about. Rabbits used to live under the stacks of timber, we had many a Rabbit Pie
It was a most exciting time, watching Spitfires hedgehopping. I remember one time picking up handfulls of paper strips called Window, it was used to jam Radar. One time, the field next to Aswarby Station was full of German prisoners working in their uniforms.
One day Dad came home and said a Lancaster crashed near Scredington Church.

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