FIFTY Wootton Courtney residents or their families have contributed their wartime recollections to a 220-page illustrated book launched by the village community last Friday to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day.

‘Wootton Courtenay – Memories of WWII’ brings back to life the days when the world was at war, seen through the eyes of children and parents, servicemen and women in personal stories, many of which are being told for the first time.

Sponsorship from villagers and businesses has covered 75 per cent of production costs and made possible a print run of 500 books.

An organising committee spokesman said: “The sale of the first 100 books will cover final costs and the income from further volumes will be donated to the Air Ambulance on which this village, and many others, depend.”

The evocative front and back covers are the work of Gabrielle Horrobin and David Jessop, members of the Wootton Courtenay Art Group and residents contributed rare archive photographs, and either wrote their own stories or spoke to a team of interviewers.

The spokesman added: “The book provides a fascinating picture of hard rural wartime life, its problems and its delights. It is a mixture of nostalgia, revelations, and occasionally shock – even 75 years on.”

Recollections include those of a village resident for 30 years, Mrs Elizabeth Ash, 94, who was a member of the top-secret team running the naval Commander in Chief’s Portsmouth Operations Room at the height of bombing raids and recalls the moment when a friend was killed before her eyes.

On one occasion she climbed into a neighbour’s house to extinguish an incendiary bomb, but did not report the incident “because people were doing things like that all the time”.

There is a memoir of Lady Pamela Biggs-Davison, who spent much of her life on Exmoor and died aged 93 in 2017 and was a code-breaker at Bletchley Park. Home on leave, she remembered dodging bullets from strafing enemy aircraft by jumping into the River Avill and sheltering under a bridge.

The village school logbook, kept every day throughout the war, provides a picture of wartime life in a small school swelled by evacuees – two residents still remember their days there.

The book costs £5, plus p&p, and is available at the Villagers’ Store, Wootton Courtenay, 01643 841582 or [email protected]

For further information or difficulties in buying a copy please contact Peter Clapham 841578 or Roger Carrick 841060.