The end of our wartime zoo garden allotment plot Autumn 2023

Our World War Zoo Gardens wartime zoo keeper’s allotment which flourished at Newquay Zoo from 2009 to 2019 has now officially been dismantled.

After a couple of post-Covid fallow years as a wildlife friendly wildflower pollinators’ garden, we have started to dismantle what remains.  

The wartime zoo research project and this research blog will carry on here online but the garden itself has now been cleared. Some of the useful perennial herbs have been replanted elsewhere for keeper use as animal scent enrichment.

The vintage bricks will be reused on site and the twelve year old fence panels recycled. 

It will be interesting, once this area is grassed over again, to see what wild flowers and herbs return!   

Kenneth Helphand in his thought-provoking book about gardening in wartime Defiant Gardens mentioned that many gardens are ephemeral and often do not last, often leaving only “ghost marks” of where they have been. 

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Last week we also donated some of the last surplus wartime artefacts used in our schools workshops to the Learning team at Bodmin Keep (Bodmin Military Museum)  in Cornwall 

They were gratefully received and I know that they will be well used teaching the next generation about what life on the Home Front in WW2 in Cornwall and Britain was like.

Transcribing our / my collection of WW2 Home Front Wartime Diaries will continue in my own spare time and be placed online. 

The wartime garden books have been donated to a friend in Scotland.

The wartime recipe books have already been donated for use online and in the kitchen by food historian and food blogger Carolyn Ekins of The 1940s Experiment blog. https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2022/11/03/our-wartime-recipe-books-have-found-a-new-home/

All good things come to an end … 

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The biographical blog posts about the lost staff of  zoos and botanic gardens remembered on war memorials will remain online in remembrance, and we will mark the odd topical event such as the 80th Anniversary of D-Day in June 2024.

Blog posted by Mark Norris, Newquay Zoo Education Officer, 9th October 2023 

 

 

 

Remembering D Day 6 June 1944 at Paignton and Slapton Ley Wild Planet Trust sites 78 years on

Another year passes and again we remember the many American, British and Allied troops who left our shores of Devon and Cornwall to land on D Day 6 June 1944 from several Wild Planet Trust sites.

Remembering D-Day 6th June 1944 – the Wild Planet Trust Connection

Happy 97th Birthday Peggy Jane Skinner!

Today December 20th 2021 would have been the 97th birthday of diarist Peggy Jane Skinner (1924-2011).

 

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Today December 20th 2021 would have been the 97th birthday of diarist Peggy Jane Skinner (1924-2011).

You can read more of her daily life in the 1940s in her diary entries month by month on our https://ww2homefrontdiaries.wordpress.com blog, detailing her life as a wartime schoolgirl 1940 and university student in Scotland 1943, then post-war life as a scientist and teacher back in her native London. 

Peggy Jane Skinner’s Diary 1940

Peggy Jane Skinner’s 1943 Diary Introduction

Peggy Jane Skinner’s Postwar Diaries 1946 to 1949

Happy Birthday Peggy! 

Blog posted by Mark Norris, WW2 Home Front Diaries blog site. 

Wartime Zoo WW2 Wild at Home activities for Lockdown 3

Wild at home education activities (newquayzoo.org.uk)

Like many of you now during Lockdown 3, I am working from home whilst Newquay Zoo is closed to visitors – check our website for news on reopening. So sadly I am not yet digging the garden over yet to clear it from last year and getting it ready for sowing for the spring growing season. Fresh veg, flowers and herbs for the animals – and the local pollinators and other bug life!

Meanwhile enjoy the three WW2 activity pages on Wild at Home – cookery recipes and curious WW2 history facts and links – alongside lots of other fun craft at home / home schooling ideas.

Lots of interesting history and gardening images on the blog stretching back 10 years and covering WW1, WW2 and zoos now and in the future.

We are also working on an online / digital outreach schools talk for spring 2021 on what we can learn for the future on how Zoos survived WW2. Watch this space!

Blog post by Mark Norris, Newquay Zoo Education, 7 January 2021.

Blitzkrieg Month – Peggy Jane Skinner’s Diary May 1940 WW2

Believed to be a picture of Peggy Jane Skinner found in her 1943 diary

Peggy Jane Skinner (1924-2011) is a fifteen year old school girl from the Kingston upon Thames / London area who is at school in the Renfrew area of Glasgow. We are not yet sure which school she attended.

Her tiny pocket diary records a few daily details of her personal life but also mentions of national and international events of the war events.

You can read the whole month at:

https://ww2homefrontdiaries.wordpress.com/peggy-jane-skinners-may-1940-diary

and her whole diary for the year 1940 here: https://ww2homefrontdiaries.wordpress.com/peggy-jane-skinners-diary-1940/

Previously in April 1940 after months of inactivity in the ‘Phoney War’ or ‘Bore War’, Peggy mentioned the Nazi invasion of Denmark and Norway and naval battles.

https://ww2homefrontdiaries.wordpress.com/peggy-jane-skinners-april-1940-diary/

May 1940 – Selected war related entries in Peggy’s diary of school life. 

Monday 6th May 1940 – Did not go to gym today. There are 100 French soldiers coming to school on Thurs, we‘re going to give them tea for which we’ve to provide the grub and a concert. Several items from school concert are to be included but not our play. The other one is.

Who were these French sailors? France had yet to be invaded (but only a  few days). One likely answer is that these ‘French soldiers’ may have been French troops involved in the Norway campaign.

Tuesday 7th May 1940 – Went round church to help clean with AYPA [ her youth club, the Anglican Young Peoples Association]. French officers in school today, they visited all senior classes except us because we don’t take French Grammar. People took some of the soldiers home. There are a lot in the district.

Thursday 9th May 1940 – Went to baths first two periods this morning, did not go in. French soldiers in school today, got away at 3 o’clock and had to line the hill as they came up. I hear the concert and tea were awfully good.

Note in between entries – “Election”. Churchill succeeds Chamberlain as Prime Minister.

Peggy does not mention hearing or reading of Churchill’s Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat speech on 13th May 1940

The next few weeks leading to the Fall of France,  Dunkirk evacuation and the threat of invasion or bombing of Britain are tense ones for Peggy as she is trying to focus on her end of school exams.

Firstly, France and the Low Countries (Luxembourg, Belgiun and the Netherlands / Holland) are invaded on 10 May 1940 by surprise Blitzkreig (combined tank and aerial attack). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Netherlands

Friday 10th May 1940 – Germany invaded the Low Countries today. Got away from school today at 3 o’clock as a mark of [Headteacher the] Rector’s gratitude for food for French troops.Went to concert in our church in Govan, was quite good though dance afterwards was washout.

Saturday 11th May 1940 – I went to tennis in the afternoon, I only had one game because there were so many people there. Churchill has made new war cabinet, air raids on Holland and Belgium. There is either an awful lot of news or none at all.

Peggy is in the middle of her school exams so much of the diary entries are a mixture of exam worries, school life, her church youth club social life, family news and wartime entertainments.

Air raid practice obviously happened not just in response to those in Holland and Belgium but as a routine every Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday 15th May 1940 – Had an air-raid practice at Higher History this afternoon. I don’t think we’ve had one yet which hasn’t been first two periods Wednesday afternoon. Holland given up.

News from Europe that she read in the newspapers or heard over the BBC Wireless (Radio) did not get any brighter. She often records the news of an event the day after it happened in published wartime timelines, as she would have not heard of it on the news or read it in the paper until the day after.

Tuesday 28th May 1940 – Belgium gave in, at least the King did and since he’s in command – the government say they are still fighting. What an awful predicament he must be in.

If you want to read ahead, here are her diary entries for June 1940:

https://ww2homefrontdiaries.wordpress.com/peggy-jane-skinners-june-1940-diary/

Peggy Skinner vs. Timeline of WW2 May 1940 events

You can compare her diary entries with a timeline of international news for May 1940.

12 May 1940 – Germany invades France –  not directly mentioned by Peggy
14 May 1940 – Dutch forces surrender to the Germans after 4 days – mentioned by Peggy 

14 May 1940 – LDV (Local Defence Volunteers, later the Home Guard) formed after radio appeal by Anthony Eden.

http://www.staffshomeguard.co.uk/J1GeneralInformatonEden.htm

It is curious that Peggy  doesn’t mention her father joining the LDV or Home Guard. We know from later entries that Peggy’s father William Ernest or Ernest William Skinner does volunteer for this; it is possible that his engineering job makes him ineligible for National Service.

15 May 1940 – RAF bomb the Ruhr industrial area of Germany – not mentioned by Peggy

26 May 1940 – Dunkirk or Operation Dynamo, the naval evacuation of British and French forces from Dunkirk, with the armada of ‘little ships’ from 27th May 1940. This is completed by 4th June when Churchill makes his famous speech of resistance: “We shall fight them on the beaches” – curiously not mentioned by Peggy directly in May or June. 

28 May 1940 – Belgium surrenders – mentioned by Peggy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Belgium

30 May 1940 – British government orders removal of signposts and street names in Britain to confuse potential invaders – not mentioned by Peggy 

Copyright: Peggy Jane Skinner (1924 – 2011) / Mark Norris, my WW2 Home Front Diaries collection. If you wish to reproduce or quote from these diaries, please contact me first via the Comments page.

 

 

 

San Diego Zoo 1944 postcard

Message on the back reads:

I hope Lieutenant H.J. Eiland (?) survived his war service. A great address to post a card to “John Burks, c/o Voice of Victory, Wade City, Florida”

Close up of the 19 November 1944 Postcard shows a little wartime life at San Diego Zoo – GIs / US  servicemen in uniform peaked caps (tinted green) and a sailor in bottom left hand corner, hopefully with his gal.

An amphitheatre like this still exists at San Diego Zoo in 2002.

In my Post 9-11 visit in 2002, they played a patriotic anthem, naming all the states in the Union just before the animal ambassador show started. People were invited to cheer or join in when their state was mentioned. Service  veterans or Service families were also mentioned and applauded whilst the Stars and Stripes flag was displayed very prominently everywhere.

I can’t quite imagine this in Britain, starting a zoo talk or animal encounter with a cheery proud song listing all the shires, even post BREXIT …

Interesting postcard, proof of the entertaining, patriotic  and morale boosting role  of the zoo in wartime.

Posted by Mark Norris, Newquay Zoo

 

Plymouth Blitz diary 1941

April 1941 entries (anonymous Plymouth Blitz diary, c/o Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens project)

Plymouth Blitz 1941 diary

‘Awful Blitz’ – Last year this anonymous diary of a Plymouth civilian turned up in an online auction and is now part of my collection of wartime civilian diaries.

I feel fairly sure the anonymous author is a woman, a health worker, health visitor or district nurse. Some of the handwriting in ink and pencil is cramped or smudged and difficult to read in the small section allotted to each day in this small personal diary.

Two excellent books by Gerald Wasley Devon at War (Halsgrove) and the Plymouth:  A Shattered City  (Halsgrove, 2004) describe and illustrate the effects of the Plymouth Blitz very well.

Here is an edited selection covering the March and April Plymouth Blitz weeks of 1941, my small tribute to the people of Plymouth and of Blitzed Britain 75 years on.

Where I cannot make out the smudged or cramped ink handwriting, I have put best guesses in brackets or dots if not sure […] and will add details as they become clear over time.

 

This section of the diary opens with the royal visit after a quiet unblitzed night.

March 1941 Blitz entries (anonymous Plymouth  1941 diary, c/o Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens project)

Thursday 20 March 1941

King and Queen in Plymouth. Peace all night.

Dull morning. Down Beaumont, lovely day later. Dev(onport) dips then town in [?blazing?] Sunshine. To Salisbury Road Schools then Dr. Harrison in Princess Square. Home, tea. Cookery school and Easter Cake. Siren 4.30 and again 8.30pm Awful blitz.

Ended midnight. Lay on bed.

Fri 21 March 1941

Up early and out Swilly. Down town lunch hour. Spooners gone. St Andrews burning via ?ove? street to collect marmalade and cake. House craft. Home, lunch and out Swilly. Then [w..] Hawkes to tea. To CH (City Hospital), had bath – could not see Mac. Packed bag. Put oil away. Awful blitz 8.30 till midnight but felt calmer than on Thursday.

[Editor’s note: CH is the abbreviation for City Hospital. Love Street is in Plymouth. St Andrews Church was lost in the Plymouth Blitz. Beaumont maybe Beaumont Road in the St. Jude’s area of Plymouth.Swilly (now North Prospect) was the original official name (and still known to many as Swilly) given to the first council estate built in Plymouth during the 1920s. There was also a hospital there who dealt with many blitz victims.Spooner’s department store was destroyed in the  bombing (‘gone’) – see photos and more information at Derek Tait’s website: http://plymouthlocalhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/spooners.html

Sat 22 March 1941.

Up early and out Beaumont, Dentals. Town Hall staff moving into Beaumont. After Dentals went market and then home and cleaned flat. Sun came out. Icky arrived. Had lunch. Went via Drake’s Circus to market and looked at ruins. Firemen still playing hose on smouldering parts. To Stoke House and then walk via Peverell to Hartley Vale and [???] Kelly. Bus home, tea then saw Icky off in awful crowd. Lovely sunny afternoon. To CH  City Hospital – found Mac evacuating and saw ruins of Children’s ward. Home. Supper down with J’s

[Editor’s note: Icky and Mac a nurse of some rank are two friends of the writer who recur throughout the diary entries.
It is possible that Mac is Dr Allison McNairn, who won the George Medal for her bravery at the Children’s Ward of the City Hospital during the Blitz.

http://www.dnw.co.uk/auction-archive/catalogue-archive/lot.php?auction_id=94&lot_id=53991

The Daily Emergency Bulletin No. 1 March 1941 mentions the “12. Public Health Department has been transferred from the Town Hall Stonehouse to Beaumont House, Beaumont Park, Plymouth Telephone Plymouth 2821, Ext. 249.” Bulletin shown on p. 116, Plymouth – A Shattered City by Gerald Wasley.

This Bulletin also mentions “List of Rest Centres open: Mount Gold Methodist, Mount Gold Road; Salisbury Road Baptist, Plymouth; Clarence House, Clarence Place, East Stonehouse; St. Jude’s Hall, Beaumont Road; St. Gabriel’s, Hyde Park Road; Swarthmore Settlement, Mutley Plain; All Saints, Harwell Street; St Peters Hall, Wyndham Street, Plymouth; Central Hall, Saltash Street; YMCA Hostel, Union Street; St. George’s Road, Ryder Road”. The diary writer mentions several of these locations and Rest Centres which were for “Food and Shelter for those rendered homeless”.

From the 1930s, Stoke House became known as Devonport Guardians’ Children’s Home.

See section 4040 http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/archivescatalogue?criteria%3D4040%26operator%3DAND%26toNo%3D40%26accno%3Dyes

The bombing of the City Hospital children’s ward and loss of several nursing staff and young children is remembered in a plaque in Derriford Hospital. It is mentioned in several websites such as the BBC People’s War and also:

http://www.plymouthhospitals.nhs.uk/ourorganisation/newsandpublications/pressreleases/Pages/AirRaidMemorialService.aspx

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/99/a7185099.shtml 

Sunday 23 March 1941

Peace all night but difficult to sleep. To CH City Hospital and Swarthmore. Then back Eggbuckland. Walk Stonybridge, Plymbridge, Estover. Jerry siren and guns. Shown over Estover farm 172 cows. Walk George Hotel. Bus CH (City Hospital), did washing and shampoo. Then out Miss Jago. Home with J’s. Cold.

Monday 24 March 1941

Peace all night. Dull drizzle. On [Mutley] Plain and the Salisbury Road. Siren 11 am. To Beaumont and Cobourg with reports. Home, lunch. Walk out Swilly via Peverell. Quiet clinic. Mist and rain. To Stoke House. Mill bridge to see […] Vine via Odeon to Housecraft then home. Siren 6.30. Washed and wrote. Knitted, J’s.

[Editor’s Note: Cobourg Street in Plymouth was also home to Plymouth City High School for Girls, where the writer seems to go for lunch on her rounds. The High School served “Communal Meals will be served at Portland Square, Treville Street School and Plymouth Girls High School between 12 and 2 pm at a cheap rate. open Sunday” according to a Ministry of Information Plymouth Circular 25-4-41 (p. 165, Plymouth – A Shattered City by Gerald Wasley.]

Tuesday 25 March 1941

Quiet night. Rain and drizzle. Mutley Plain, Central Park and Devonport. Home via Hoe and saw Miss Coburn. Back lunch and out Dev[onport] via Cobourg Street, called Stoke House then Beaumont and saw Mrs Robert Walker. Raining. Muddy. CH City Hospital for bath and saw Mac. Dinner etc and eve[ning] with J’s.

Wednesday 26 March 1941

Quiet night. Mist and rain. Up Henders Corner then Salisbury Rd School to Virginia House and Housecraft. Home lunch. Bank and Peverell Dr Johnstone. V. Wet. Saw smashed up Jerry outside CH City Hospital. Out Stoke House [??] Dev(onport). Walk home via Manadon. Lovely evening. Parcel from Jo and letter. Cleaned. Cooked. Wrote letters. Darned, J’s.

[Editor’s Note: the  Virginia House Settlement were welfare and community buildings in former church and community buildings on Looe Street and Batters Street developed with the help of Plymouth MP Nancy Astor between the wars.]

Thursday 27 March 1941

Good sleep and nice quiet night. Lovely a.m. To Housecraft and Barbican. Then Beaumont. Saw Thynne re. billeting children. To Devonport  Dips then Miss Glover. Lost bag. Hot day out Laira Green School – finished early. Nice walk [??] Marsh Mills, Stonybridge, Estover …Miss ??son, Aerodrome, Stonybridge Eggbuckland and back. Inoc typh: made Easter biscuits. Jenkins gone. Sirens and guns 9pm [??]

[Editor’s note: Inoc typh – See “free inoculations against Typhoid: Persons wishing to avail themselves of this service should go to Prince of Wales Hospital, Greenbank, between 9.30 am – 11 am or 2.30-5pm” according to a Ministry of Information Plymouth Circular 25-4-41 (p. 165, Plymouth – A Shattered City by Gerald Wasley.]

Friday 28 March 1941

Wet. Swilly via Swarthmore and St. Gabriel’s. Home. Lunch via Peverell and to Compton Lodge and saw delicious flat. Walk out Milehouse and did clinic. Rain in through Lukes roof. Home via town. Parnell called. To CH City Hospital, bath. Home and cooked Easter biscuits and saw Jenkins. Knitting and darning.

Saturday 29 March 1941

Cold and dull. Restless night ac/o

To Beaumont no D.S. to town found Dingles and Town Hall Devastation awful. Beaumont billeting Thynne. St Jude’s Rest Centre. after lunch walk over moors Moorland Links. Saw Dr and Mrs Harrison. Bus home from Derriford. CH City Hospital for ironing. Dinner etc Siren 8.45. V.cold talked mrs Montague on steps.

[Editor’s Note: Dingles was a major department store which was damaged like the Town Hall during the Blitz].

Sunday 30 March 1941

Lovely sunny a.m. Up CH City Hospital and saw [???] MacN? Icky arrived. Walk Mount Gold and saw babes then Rest Centre. Then Stonybridge,  Plymbridge. Lunch, pine wood in baking sun ….

[Editor’s note: Mount Gold was a hospital in wartime Plymouth. Rest Centres were part of the WRVS, civic and Civil Defence responses to displaced or bombed out people – see previous note.]

Monday 7 April 1941

Brilliant sun but very cold. Town v. Late then punctured so reached Plymouth at noon. Letters and lunch then stopping in lovely sun up Swilly. Back Plain bus and cleaned up flat. Raid 9.30 – 12.30 then again 1.30 – 4.30 am. Dressed in cupboard. Fire watched at Rand and Co.

Tuesday 8 April 1941

Up early for good bath CH City Hospital incendiaries ++ Hartley and HE at Swilly. Devonport via Hartley bus v. Tired all day. Had tea Stoke House then in lovely sun to flat, did ironing and had dinner CH then sewing at Sellecks. Peace all night.

[Editor’s note: ++ is probably the diarist’s symbol for many. HE is High Explosive bombs].

Wednesday 9 April 1941

Cold raw morning. Out school St. Budeaux, shopping and to Communal Dinner [at] High School. Back Devonport and called Stoke House with Rawlin. Back flat and did good clean up. Siren 11 pm just as in bed. Quiet at first then planes and guns. In Sellecks and out firewatching till late.

Thursday 10 April 1941

To CH bath early. Lovely sunny morning. Down Beaumont, fetched luggage from flat > Devonport Dips to [???] Lunch, lovely sun. Throng in shattered Plymouth to Sussex Street Re. patient. Home, flat, cleaned up then caught 3.45 bus Exeter. Coffee Dellars [???] See Whole City. Home. Supper. Planes + Siren in [???] Incendiaries. House burned out Copplestone.

[Editor’s Note: according to website http://www.exetermemories.org.uk, “Deller’s became a favourite venue after the outbreak of war for the many who were displaced, or had been evacuated to Exeter. Members of the Women’s Land Army were guests at the café, along with evacuated children, and of course, service men meeting their sweethearts.” It was damaged by bombing and fire damage in 1942 in the Exeter Blitz.]

 

Friday 11 April 1941 Good Friday

Did not hear all clear. Nice morning. Walk […] Copplestone and St. [???] road. Incendiaries + Then [???] Home and to 3 hours [church] service. After walk [Radford or Redditch] lake, St. Johns and Ex??? Then home same way. Tea guesthouse St. Johns. Apples, tour round Ralditch. Dinner in drawing room. Sirens. Played piano + + all clear 5 am.

 

Saturday 12 April 1941

Lovely sunny morning V. Hot walk Exmouth and met DB there and home by bus Littleham. Cycled Marley, Lympstone, Woodbury village, Hogsbrook Rise [in] afternoon. Tea bungalow and home. Dull and cold. Nice ride home. Knitting eve. Siren, noisy, planes + Bombs at Exmouth. Got to bed 12.30.

 

Sunday  13 April 1941 Easter Sunday

Lovely morning . Up 5.30 and to 6 am service then home and breakfast etc. then walk Littleham church. Packed. Sat on font. Home over cliffs and fields. In afternoon to Exmouth on cycle, see bomb on beach. V. Cold windy Home rain […] Rd. tea and took run out up Knowle. Washed hair. Potato cakes.

 

Monday 14 April 1941 Bank Holiday

Siren on and off all night. Common on fire and bombs? […] Up breakfast and out before on bike collecting news. Then bus Exeter RB and on Plymouth. Sun came out Ivybridge. To flat. Looked dilapidated after Budleigh. Tea Mrs. Hynes. Home and cleaned then took luggage Mrs H. and slept there night v. Comfy. Siren about 5am.

 

Tuesday 15 April 1941

Lovely morning. Up dressed and down flat then out Devonport. Down Town and OU Comm Church, did shopping Town and out Dev(onport) – slack ish. Home eve[ning] via Peverell and Mutley. Note Rands re sleeping there. Up Hynes – lovely eve. […] knitting […] Long raid 9.30 to 5.20 am.

Wednesday 16 April 1941

Lovely morning v. Tired. Down flat and baked cake, Sellicks then town and Stoke House and lunch High School. Glorious day. Devonport Park afternoon (crossed out section – up to see Mrs O’Sullivan who was v. Depressing) Think no air raids. Put advert in paper for flat.

Thursday  17 April 1941

Lovely morning. Out to St. Budeaux for A.N. [AnteNatal?] clinic. Lovely day. Home and cleaned flat and to CH City Hospital for tea. Then Dr Hynes. Shoals of adverts from flat, spent week inspecting them.

Friday 18 April 1941

Swilly as usual. To High School, lunch and met [? at ? ?] City Hospital. Caught 3.45 bus Exeter, v. long and crowded journey. Home night perfect peace. Good sleep.

Saturday 19 April 1941

Lovely morning. On bicycle to Exmouth for some margarine. Lovely ride home. In afternoon cycled with DB to Tidwell, Bicton and Yettington. Then to find bomb craters near Blackberry ??farm?? Lost DB. Started to rain. Went home. DB arrived later and lively debate ensued re leaving her. In evening did much cooking ac/o Mick’s injured hand. Peace night. Mick from Skinners [???]

Sunday 20 April 1941

Lovely morning but cold. To Littleham. Church DB home over cliffs. After lunch walk ?? To cliffs in sun. Caught 3.35 bus Exeter and Plymouth. Back to flat prepared supper. To Hynes and peace all night.

Monday 21 April 1941

Down flat early then to School Clinic. Lovely sun. Met Thomson. To town and flat there flat lunch and out [to] Hynes [in] evening. Air raid 9.30 pm Fires planes ++ ended 4.30 am. Devonport attacked and rest of Plymouth.

Tuesday 22 April 1941

Up early and down flat. Still intact. Then out Devonport. Time bomb near Stoke House, much damage Albert Road. Lunch High School and back Devonport. Visited Welcome Rest Centre. Back there afternoon then Yelverton to see Black. Lovely.

Air Raid all night 9.30 to 3a.m. Devonport badly attacked and Police Station and terrace by Hospital. All Town roped off.

Wednesday 23 April 1941

To St. Budeaux school dull and wintry walk Eggbuckland vicarage and Wideycourt. Could not get [to] High School for lunch. Out Devonport – time bomb near [???] Back Stoke House burned out. Then to Gratton [… Fayre …] And to see […] Bus home. To flat and out [to] Hynes.

Thursday 24 April 1941

Air raid 9.30 to 1 a.m. Devonport again and oil tanks Torpoint. To Beaumont Dips and then Town Hall. High School lunch. Lovely sunny day. To Stoke House children in a school and then school inspect[ion] St. Budeaux. Home and cleaned flat. Then [to] Hynes. Shampoo. Lay down and slept 2am.

Friday 25 April 1941

Good rest. Lovely evening. To Swilly via Peverell, Beacon Park. Seized with renal colic before lunch at High School. Could not do clinic. Home. Saw Mrs. Collier. Bed. Down for news and then long good night. Lovely day. Siren 10pm and 1.30am.

Saturday 26 April 1941

Up early and down to get breakfast. To Town Hall, Stoke House, Rest Centres etc. Home lunch. Finished Rest Centres and Ben lovely sunny walk [???] Tralee and back to flat. Then to another Rest Centre then home,  washed stockings. Icky rang up. Pleasant evening. Siren 6pm.

Sunday 27 April 1941

Dull and v. cold wind. Down flat and did rest centres. Visited Smellie. Home lunch and up [to] Hynes and down out Holbeton. Walk along Hill Drive into Holbeton […] home to flat and started packing. Walk [… ] Eggbuckland and home.

Monday 28 April 1941
Lovely morning out St Budeaux and Swilly then home flat. Called Marshall’s in Cornwall. Up Mrs. Hynes. Siren 10 to 10 and v. intensive raid. Finished about 1.30 am. Dreadful damage St. Budeaux and Saltash.

Tuesday 29 April 1941
Lovely sunny morning. Out to Devonport – still time bombs. Then to Stoke House children – Matron going Clovelly. Walk out [Linkelly?]
then to High School lunch. Out Swilly afternoon. Tea Mrs. Kennedy. Packed up and went Hynes. No go at [Coll …] Dreadful raid 10 to 10 – 2 a.m.

 

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[Editor’s note: Our local NFS Newquay Fire Crew were lost attending the 27/28 Plymouth April fires.

The Plymouth Blitz 70 years on and Newquay’s lost wartime AFS firecrew remembered ..

The diary continues for the rest of the year. Another notable entry is on “May 1 1941 evacuation school children” and “Friday 9 May Evacuation Exam” along with “Saturday 3rd May Churchill Visit” but that is another story for another post.

Children from Stoke House Children’s Home and the related Scattered Homes were evacuated to Clovelly in Devon – see Plymouth Archive catalogue 4040 http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/archivescatalogue?criteria%3D4040%26operator%3DAND%26toNo%3D40%26accno%3Dyes

Posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens Collection, Newquay Zoo.

If you wish to reuse or quote extracts from this Plymouth 1941 Blitz diary, please credit it back to the above and this website. I can be contacted through the Reply / Comments page on this  blog.

 

Plymouth Marine Biological Association blitzed 20 March 1941

Remembering Stanley Wells Kemp and the fire teams in the Plymouth Blitz

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Wells_Kemp

The Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association on the Hoe in Plymouth was severely damaged on the evening of 20 March 1941 in the Plymouth Blitz. It also suffered HE bomb damage to its extensive glass on 28 December 1940.

The 1941 bombardment is described in the obituary of Stanley Wells Kemp who was the director of the MBA at the time. He sacrificed his living quarters to the flames in order to try and save his ‘aquarium’ laboratories.

Obituary

http://sabella.mba.ac.uk/1303/01/Obituary_Stanley_Wells_Kemp.pdf

More resources on the MBA in the Plymouth Blitz can be found on the MBA website including a typed description of the damage, republished in the journal Nature: http://www.mba.ac.uk/nmbl/projects/history/125laboratory/resources/blitz

Blitz and pieces at our Wartime zoo workshops

Another successful wartime zoo workshop at Newquay Zoo in Cornwall.

Before busily  packing away our interesting archive of wartime items until their  next outing for a schools workshop, so I thought I’d photograph a few more items in our collection to share with you.

Previously we showed a little of our  wartime workshop for schools about how  wartime changed life for zoo staff, animals, visitors and more generally for people on the Home Front in Britain in World War 2.

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/world-war-zoo-gardens-workshops-for-schools-at-newquay-zoo/

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2015/01/05/ww2-at-newquay-zoo-and-other-primary-workshops-inspired-by-the-new-curriculum/

It’s always interesting to see what items attract children’s attention each time. The handmade toys proved popular and the school may well have a go at making some of their own. (I have a few plans and books of these).

 

A wartime toy ark made from whatever wood was available by Mr Ernest Lukey, teacher from Poole, Dorset for his daughter Wendy (kindly loaned to Newquay Zoo).

Mr Lukey’s  hand carved wooden toy animals are the only time you’ll see elephants, rhinos, camels and giraffes at Newquay Zoo. The real ones are usually seen at our sister zoo at Paignton, operational throughout World War 2.

Trying on helmets and heavy woollen wartime uniforms and clothing was also popular:

Inside the Women’s Land Army greatcoat was this 1943 label and inside the pocket this curious cardboard roll of labels – maybe to do with size?

In our next Blitz and Pieces we’ll feature another popular item on display – the insides of the family ARP (Air Raid Precautions) First Aid Box, still intact 70 years on.

Posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens Project, Newquay Zoo (March 2015).

 

1941 grimmest year of the war 75 years on

‘It All Depends on Me’ playing card sized propaganda for your pocket diary, from the Brewers Society, 1941/42 (image from the World War Zoo gardens collection, Newquay Zoo)

On the 70th anniversary of 1941, the “grimmest year of the war” according to some, I posted the following blogpost about our World War Zoo Gardens project at Newquay Zoo:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/1941-the-grimmest-year-of-the-war-sowing-saved-seed-solving-shorthand-clues-and-editing-wartime-diaries-for-the-world-war-zoo-gardens-project-at-newquay-zoo/

2011 / 2016: We are still hard at work on the wartime diaries project as new diaries come into our collection.

2011 also sadly saw during  the 70th anniversary of the dark days of 1941   the death of ‘Betty Turpin’, much loved British soap actress who in the 1940s was  better known as wartime singing star Betty Driver:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/it-all-depends-on-me-or-you-betty-driver-rip-potato-pete-mr-chad-and-propaganda-of-the-1940s/

Rereading these 5 year old blogposts from 2011  is sad in some ways, as David Lowe’s wonderful BBC music nostalgia programmes finished in 2012, still much missed.

1941 was also the year of the Plymouth Blitz where a Newquay AFS fire crew was lost, something to remember in April 2016 on the 75th anniversary. https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/the-plymouth-blitz-70-years-on-and-newquays-lost-wartime-afs-firecrew-remembered/

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/of-zoos-and-fire-fighting-today-and-in-wartime/

World War Zoo gardens graphic sign Summer 2011

Our Graphics sign for the project produced by Stewart Muir, graphic designer Michelle Turton and myself arraived in 2011. Still looking good five years later and would have been read by hundreds of thousands of people.

Newquay Zoo’s wartime gardener and blogger Mark Norris with the BIAZA award for best plants in a landscape feature and design.

2011 was the year of our BIAZA Zoo Gardening award in November: https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/world-war-zoo-gardens-at-newquay-zoo-wins-a-zoo-oscar-national-biaza-2011-gardening-award/

http://www.biaza.org.uk/plant-care-management/awards-and-commendations/world-war-zoo-gardens/

2011 also saw me talk about wartime zoos at the Chester Zoo / WAZA / SHNH /  Bartlett Society zoo history conference in May 2011, the talk now published as a journal article in the proceedings.

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/zoo-do-you-think-you-are-tracking-down-family-history-and-wartime-concrete-at-chester-zoo/

Our wartime Gnome Guard-ener pays his respects at London Zoo’s staff war memorial, March 2011

2011 was also the year our wartime garden gnome or ‘Gnome Guard’ disappeared, popped up at Paignton Zoo and did a European zoo tour with postcards home before reappearing one day. Still haven’t found how or who aided and abetted this … https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/one-of-our-gnome-guards-is-missing-from-newquay-zoo/

L.R. Brightwell’s wartime panda poster for London Zoo 1942

December 2016 will also see the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor which brought the USA into the war on the Allied side. This was marked in 2011 by a topical blogpost on Giant Pandas of all things:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/panda-tourism-and-pearl-harbor-a-wartime-perspective-from-world-war-zoo-gardens/

 

George Mottershead in uniform with wife Elizabeth, World War One, one of many family photos in the lovely June’s Pavilion, Chester Zoo 2011

The First World War Centenary was still in the planning in 2011. This year 2016 sees the anniversary of conscription in the UK and the battles of Verdun and the Somme in July 1916.

The Somme and 1916 saw the deaths of several more British zoo keepers and botanic garden staff and no doubt many of their French and German colleagues.

We will post 1916/2016 centenary blogs closer to the time on the effect these battles had on these men and their families and colleagues, not least George Mottershead. George survived a serious disabling injury at the Somme to found Chester Zoo in the 1930s, something celebrated since 2011 in the BBC series “Our Zoo”.

2011 was a busy year of anniversaries and gardening.

Happy New Year for 2016 and thanks for reading.

I wonder what we’ll be looking back on in another 5 years?

Posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens project, Newquay Zoo