Mick Crowdy: 1935 –
Mick Crowdy was born in Thame in 1935. His family has lived in the town for many generations. Mick tells of his life growing up in Thame during and after the war years. Mick worked for many years as a painter and decorator and painted many buildings in the town centre.
The recording was made on the 19th March 2008
Thame – a small town – Early days in Thame when everyone knows everyone else and the town boundaries are well defined. War time and the bomb that lands behind the Town Hall. Air raid shelters in the Upper and Lower High Street car parks.
Rations, troops, rubbish and the stuff they left behind – No real possessions during the war years because of rationing. Large number of troops in the Thame area prior to D-Day in 1944. Personal possessions, tins of food, ammunition and slip-on shoes are dumped in the town when the troops leave.
Thame – an agricultural town – Thame is an agricultural town with two blacksmiths and much more local employment. ‘Old Thame people’ feel that they are special, but life has changed since those earlier days.
Practising for D-Day – Mock battles in war time. Part of an aircraft wing is left in a tree in the allotments, and aircrew are killed in the crash at Kingsey Park. Another aircraft crashes in fields where the Chiltern Vale housing estate is now.
The glow of London Burning – Memories of the war and the Blitz in London, and the ‘glow in the sky’.
