Interview with Joyce Exton Wallace. Three

Interview with Joyce Exton Wallace. Three

Joyce Exton Wallace recalls a time when she was with barrage balloons protecting an army barracks in Barry when a dog stole their meat ration. It was subsequently replaced by locals pooling their own meat rations.

00:01:54 audio recording

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AExtonWallaceJ[Date]-03

We were down in Wales and stationed in the, in Cardiff again. Oh no. We were stationed in Barry and we, our balloon site was in the middle of more or less a housing estate with a big Army barracks in it which we were protecting with our balloon. And then the van came up with our rations for the day with our, it was the meat and vegetables and everything for cooking which we used to do on our own sites anyway. And they put them out on the side and the next thing I knew this damned great big dog came in and swiped our piece of meat. So I went chasing after it and as I got outside I was cursing this dog with this ruddy great big lump of meat [laughs] and this woman said to me, ‘What’s the matter love?’ In her lovely Welsh accent. I said, ‘He’s just pinched our rations.’ I said, ‘We haven’t got any meat for our dinner.’ ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘That’s a shame.’ And that was it and then about an hour later I was called out from my office and there were oh quite a few ladies, one or two men. They’d come along and they’d pooled their ration, meat ration from their own house and everything to buy us a lump of meat for our, for our dinner and I thought that was really lovely of them. I’ve never forgotten that. So we had our dinner. Let’s see if I can think of any more.