Barbara Breakwell, 1933-

At our recent exhibition and on our Facebook page we asked evacuees to Pembridge, during World War II, to get in touch. Portrait of Pembridge was delighted when Barbara Breakwell, who was holidaying in Pembridge, answered our call. 
Barbara was born in 1933 and was living in Longbridge when war broke out, where her father Cecil, a Pembridge lad, worked at the Austin motor plant. She and her older brother Rex, were sent by the family to live with relatives in Monkland, Kington and Leominster. During this time,  they stayed with their grandparents in Pembridge every weekend and during the school holidays, arriving on Bengry’s buses. 
Barbara’s grandfather, William Augustus Breakwell, came to Pembridge in the 1890s as a journeyman carpenter, having completed his apprenticeship in Chaddesley Corbett, Worcs. He married local girl Jane Anne Tippens, who had been in service in Lyonshall, at St Mary’s church. They had a daughter Violet, followed by three sons, Ernie, Percy, and Barbara’s father, Cecil born in 1901 at the Mill in Bridge Street. All three sons would leave Pembridge to work in the car industry at Longbridge and Dagenham.

Village Undertaker

When Barbara and Rex stayed in Pembridge, William was the village undertaker, he made the coffins, his wife laid out the deceased and William buried them. Barbara remembered playing in the coffins which became boats and cars to her and Rex. They lived at Wheelwright’s House, then later moved to the Almhouses in Bridge Street.
Barbara’s abiding memory of her grandfather is the smell of linseed oil which he used in his work as a carpenter. She remembers he had a parrot which would swear at the rector.
Barbara has fond memories of playing in the long meadow and learning to fly fish in the river Arrow where grayling and eels were caught, the latter with wasp grubs as bait. The river was teeming with wildlife, kingfishers and otters were common. On some days the river would be out of bounds while the otter hounds hunted their prey, a practice which Barbara found upsetting.
During wartime food was in short supply. At haymaking time, the children would wait for rabbits to emerge from the fields and attack them with sticks.

Behind The Times

Coming from the outskirts of Birmingham, Barbara and Rex found rural Herefordshire to be somewhat behind the times. Their grandparents didn’t have electricity or mains water. Granny Breakwell cooked on a range and used this to heat hot water for washing. Barbara and Rex had the job each day of fetching a pail of water from one of the two village pumps.
Barbara didn’t like school, especially as the local children made fun of her Birmingham accent. One of the relatives they stayed with was a terrible cook. Another, in Monkland, was carpenter to the estate and lived next to the gamekeeper. He took the children ferreting and when the family pig was killed the children were given the bladder for a football. While staying in Leominster they learned to drink cider.
After the war Barbara and her family remained frequent visitors to Pembridge and would spend a family holiday hop picking. The children were given an upside-down umbrella to fill with hops, after which they were free to play.
Granny Breakwell died in 1953 aged 88 and her husband a year later, at age 89, they are buried in St Mary’s churchyard. Barbara recalls the kindness of Mr Russell who ran the village stores in the Market Square. On a visit to Pembridge Barbara asked where she could buy flowers for her grandparent’s grave? Mr Russell opened his garden and invited Barbara to pick a bunch from there.

Barbara’s Adventures

Barbara left school at 15 and worked in the accounts department at Austin Motors. She soon tired of the routine and left there to work on a cruise ship on the river Rhine. In 1952 she joined the WRENS. She served in Gibraltar and Malta and met her sailor husband, Bill Robinson, whom she married in 1954. After having four children, Barbara worked for a yacht building company and she and Bill built their own boat which gave them hours of pleasure.
After he left the Navy, she and Bill started a decorating business, and from the 1980s onwards made an annual pilgrimage to Pembridge. Sadly, Bill succumbed to a rare genetic disease which went on to claim the lives of their four children and two of Barbara’s grandchildren.
At age 60 Barbara sold her boat, but her adventures were far from over. At age 76 she took and passed exams to become a pilot. Today at age 90, she still flies a light aircraft. It’s believed that Barbara may be the oldest woman pilot in the UK. She has often flown into the airfield at Shobdon. She now lives on the South Coast, but each year looks forward to a holiday with brother Rex in Pembridge which holds so many happy memories for them.

By Kay Ingram, Portrait Of Pembridge March 2023