Today’s children with so many of the restrictions of the modern world, would find it very difficult to imagine exactly how much freedom youngsters enjoyed even 30 years ago. But 70 years ago, growing up in the middle of a war with all its horrific physical dangers and the perpetual scarcity of money and food, enabled the Moon children to utilise all their resources of courage, ingenuity and initiative not just to help put food on the table but to actually enjoy overcoming some of those very difficult war years.

David Moon, born in 1930, was the second son in a family of four children, 2 girls and 2 boys - Roger, David, Ann and Ruth. His father, Walter, born in a Catherington Lane Cottage, had been one of 13 children so he knew a little about enterprise and self reliance. Walter’s wife, Lily May had worked as a cook to the Napier family at Merchistoun Hall but with four children to feed and wartime shortages, even with her cooking skills, she also knew what it was like to struggle.

After they were married Walter and Lily set up home Dunsbury Farm Cottage in Cowplain where Walter was employed. This was a residence with neither electricity, running water and nor a proper toilet, and where David vaguely remembers his mother having to push a pram over the fields to shop. Walter had two jobs, one in the early morning when he would drive his lorry to Portsmouth for early morning milk round and then he continued work on the farm for the rest of the day. However, when David was four, the family moved to the comparative luxury of 2 Council Houses in Fiveheads Road, Horndean.

School Days and Mischief

Also in Fiveheads Road was Horndean Boys School. Although Roger, David’s brother enjoyed school, David was totally the opposite; he loathed it right from the start. He vividly remembers his mother taking him in the morning. He reluctantly stayed until the children were let out to play and then whoosh, he escaped home. His mother would patiently take him back and this ritual persisted until one morning his father happened to be at home. Walter had had enough and he chased his son back to school with a stick. “I didn’t try it again after that” laughed Dave.

There were no mobile phones in the 1940s so the during the winter and in the blackouts, the local beat policeman would regularly use the phone box on the corner of Fiveheads Road to phone into the police station. He would leave his bike outside but the local boys, knowing his routine, would mischievously borrow it to ride down Horndean Hill leaving the unfortunate policeman to walk down the hill to collect it. Eventually however, the policeman outwitted them and chained his bike to the box. The unlucky illicit rider flew over the handle bars.

Another time they played a trick on a Mr Legg who ran a boys club in Nash Hall. He had a tiny Austin 7 car and one night the boys, between them, lifted the car, turned it sideways and blocked it in a small space. Nevertheless, they ended up lifting it out again so Mr Legg could return to his home.

Family Life

Despite having to go to school and regardless of the hardships, “It was a happy life there.” recalled Dave nostalgically. “We were always getting into mischief and continuously getting very dirty. That was our life”. The hardworking Moon family were very democratic. The boys were made to wash up and the girls to clean the shoes. However, the boys quickly learned that if they paid her a penny, Ruth, the youngest daughter, would clean the shoes for them. Later they would assist their hardworking father to supplement his wages as a lorry driver for Petersfield Council by cutting hedges (the wood was useful for firewood); maintaining the triangle of grass at the end of Fiveheads Road and sometimes assisting with Walter’s moonlighting work as the village Chimney Sweep.

Preparations for War

When he was 9, in 1939, war was declared and Dave remembers his mother telling him that Great Britain was now at war with Germany. Slightly perturbed but certainly excited, he had genuinely believed that the Germans had actually invaded and was waiting for them to arrive in Horndean any time.

“But oh dear, what we used to get up to in the war” declared Dave. “As children, not understanding the dangers, I think we actually enjoyed the war. No, we had good fun”.

There was an old round cesspit full of soil, in the garden at 2 Council Houses and it was decided this should be converted into an air raid shelter. Walter and the boys dug it out, blew a hole in the side and furnished it with bunk beds. Walter who became a volunteer fireman during the war, would drive the fire engine to Portsmouth whenever there was a air raid on. So, when the siren sounded the girls and their mother rushed into the shelter. Nonetheless, Dave and Roger, complete with their tin hats, preferred to watch the flashes and view the searchlights over Portsmouth.

“In those days, before the trees grew so large, we could see the over Portsmouth harbour from Fiveheads Road.” explained Dave. “If, during the day we spied a German aircraft trying to shoot the barrage balloons, we knew there would be a raid that night.”

Munitions and Explosives

He may have hated school but with practical bent and a lot of ingenuity, Dave soon became somewhat of an expert on munitions and explosive devices.
Dave was the proud owner of a Mossberg wooden .22 army rifle which he had used to shoot rabbits for the family pot. However, since there were vague doubts about the gun’s original origins, the outer wooden casing had been carefully disguised.

On the field, which is now the site of Horndean Junior School was as a practice area for the Local Defence Volunteer Corp. During the day the guns were placed tidily and methodically under the trees ready for the night-time practice session. Obviously it was an exciting place for the boys but even more interesting to Dave was the secure ammunition store because, as he explained, “We had the keys to that ammunition store!!”

Access to the field was obviously restricted but Dave and his friend, who lived in the Drill Hall alongside, would use this access to get into the field and use the keys to get into the ammunition store. It was an Aladdin’s’ cave for these naughty young boys and an education for the technically minded Dave. He would take the cordite from the bullets to make fuses for the detonators. “We used to make bombs by putting carbide in bottles, screwing the top off and running as fast as we could. If it didn’t go off we would use the airguns to set it off.” recalls Dave.

Dave had a maroon jacket which he hated and guiltily remembers how one day he decided to detonate it. Unfortunately, it blew the collar out. He was rather worried about going home because he justifiably expected his mother to go mad. Clothing was on ration and they had little money for replacement clothes. He lied and told her he got it hooked on barbed wire. Much to his surprise, even shock, she took the news very calmly. “Well, you hated it anyway!”. For extra fun, the boys would blow up hard cowpats in the field or blow rats out in the stables at the farm!

There was an army tip at old Blendworth where all the rubbish went. Of course, this was a magnet for the local boys who would illicitly would ‘sort it out.’ One day to their cost, they found some enticing smoke bombs and took them home. They just couldn’t resist just letting one off. They set it outside the door of the shed so nobody could prove it was them and after lighting the bomb, they quickly sheltered inside. Nonetheless, this was one experiment that did go wrong, the smoke blew back into the shed leaving them choking and coughing. “We never, ever, did that again.” said Dave.
Walter, it appears, was not quite so proficient with explosives as his son. One firework night he insisted on letting off the fireworks himself. He put a firework on the window sill and when it went off, it smashed the window! “It must have had the wrong instructions on it” he insisted!!

Befriending the Troops

Sometime before the D-Day invasion there was a build-up of troops in the area and Canadian, American and British troops moved in. The troops were stationed along the A3, from Horndean village to the Causeway. This was extremely exciting and indeed useful for these enterprising and ever hungry boys. They very quickly learned to avoid visiting the English troops because “their food was rubbish”. However, the Americans and the Canadians had far better rations and what is more, they were more than willing to share! Lonely for female company, the visiting Americans troops would ask if the boys if they had sisters to bring along. Wisely, neither Roger nor Dave let on that their sisters were actually even younger than themselves. It remained unlikely that they would need to remedy this rather useful evasion because mostly, the troops would move on during the night. The Hazleton Woods in Horndean was the site of the main cookhouse where the boys would offer to peel the potatoes or take on other jobs. This was rewarded with large slices of cake.
Resourceful Eating

Walter had worked for the council driving the dust cart. Dave recalled how adjacent to Nash Hall in London Road, Horndean there had been two garages - one was used to park the council lorry and the second used as the Canadian cookhouse, “Which was quite handy” laughed Dave. One day the ever resourceful Walter just happened to notice that the cooks were using only a small percentage of the large legs of beef they prepared and cooked and the rest was disposed of. Horrified at the waste, he quickly pointed this out to the cook who offered him the remains. He gratefully took advantage of this generous offer “and our family lived on stews for quite a while”, laughed Dave. His father also kept, rabbits, two pigs and six chickens. “You were allowed to keep one pig for eating,” explained Dave. “But you lost your meat ration.” The Ministry took the other one but you were paid for it.” There was no sentimentality in those days for hard-up families, especially those with hungry boys. Walter would notice when one hen had stopped laying and inevitably, that bird turned up for Sunday lunch!