Denton may not have borne the brunt of the direct hostilities of the Second World War to the same extent as parts of London and other large cities but was not immune from providing local men to fight and, in some cases, lose their lives for their country.

 

Similarly some 20 years earlier some of Denton’s young men were away fighting in the First World War and no fewer than 12 died for their country. To commemorate their sacrifice a memorial was erected in the churchyard and a service took place in August 1920 to dedicate the memorial. It was conducted by the then incumbent, Rev T. Amys with the patron of the church, the Marquess of Northampton, also in attendance. The service was attended by a considerable number of parishioners including many who had fought and lived to tell the tale.

 

 

They heard the Marquess tell them - ‘They would remember with sorrow what a blow it was for them as one pal after another was taken away from them. Yet it had been harder for those at home in suspense. The men of Denton had not been slow to join the Forces at the beginning of the war.  They did their duty without questioning it, realising the risks they were running were absolutely necessary for the freedom of the country and of the world. For the same reason the mothers, wives, and sisters at home let them go, and those of them who lost their dear ones were able to find comfort in the knowledge that they did their duty and made their sacrifice unmurmuringly’

 

 

On a lighter note a story appeared in the Northampton Independent dated 7^th June 1940 as one of a series of articles called ‘War in the Villages’

 

‘WE ARE ACCUSED OF SPYING!

 

A breeze brought little sighs to the oaks that straggle Denton village green.

Water was trickling from the horse-trough and running in a freckled stream on to the sandy road.

 

A group of small children were playing beneath the dense foliage of a chestnut tree, and the yellow cottage walls were cast with the ochre shadows of thatched roofs.

 

Yet behind this rural peace, Denton suffers from that new but naturally prevalent disease, war hysteria.

 

Denton gazed upon me with suspicion – they took me for a German spy!

 

The vicar (the Rev H. C. Eltoft) informed me that I had created a stir. It was reported to him (the head warden) that I had been scribbling on signposts.

 

In my defence I had to explain that I had sat upon the grass, my back against a signpost, to make some notes in my book.

This was doubtless interpreted as scribbling directions on the armless signpost.

Later, while I was making more notes, a group of women stood opposite, surreptitiously discussing me, and I was approached by a villager bearing a sickle, glinting in the sunlight.

 

I looked at it rather apprehensively, and went on with my notes. After a silence which seemed like an age, I remarked on the weather, and then enquired whether I was sitting on the grass he wished to cut. Even more deadly silence followed his monosyllabic reply in the negative.

 

‘Have to be very careful’

 

Finally he asked me who and what I was, and who I represented.

 

I think he was disappointed that I did not say ‘The German High Command’.

 

I satisfied him with a little difficulty that I was – well, WHO I was.

‘That’s all right, then’, he said ‘but you see, I’m a member of the Local Defence Volunteers, and we have to be very careful of suspicious persons these days’.

 

Later, Mr Edwin Smart, farmer, Billeting Officer, clerk to the Parish Council, and an R.D.C. member, explained to me that the water that I had casually observed running from the horse-trough was a cause of considerable concern in the village, and doubly so in wartime.

‘We’ve got a good water supply in the village’ he said ‘but there is water running to waste all day, whereas if it could be directed into a receptacle of some sort, it would be a valuable reserve in the event of fire. This is a matter of urgency in war-time, but I’m afraid there is no chance of getting the money to do anything about it.’

 

But Denton’s biggest problem, as I quickly discovered in chats with the villagers, is entertainment.

There is no village hall (see Buildings), no women’s institute, no men’s club, no girls’ club, and now no sport. In fact, there is absolutely no social activity (except, of course, the inevitable A.R.P.) of any importance in the village.(see Clubs and Entertainment)

 

No Place for Dances

 

Mr Smart told me of a pre-war scheme to raise funds for a village hall. The war had caused its suspension. And Mr Battison, the schoolmaster and chairman of the Parish Council, explained that ‘the windows of the school were too large for the County Council to have economically blacked-out, and therefore there was no place in which to hold whist drives and dances’

 

It is the schoolchildren who seem the most vitally occupied in war-time.

They have collected outside subscriptions and subscribed themselves, Mr Battison informed me, for the purchase of wool, and have knitted numerous scarves and mittens.

Originally, these were sent to the Northamptonshire Regiment, but now they present every village man who joins up with a scarf and mittens.

The Rev H. C. Eltoft cast additional light on the entertainment problem.

‘I have made attempts at various times to establish some youthful organisations, but they have met with no support. It would be all right if I were to pay for the lot of it, but when a little monetary co-operation is expected, well, it just isn’t forthcoming’

 

A Telephone at Last

 

‘Now I don’t, in the least bit, reproach the villagers for this. For Denton is a poor village, and I know that the people can’t afford to support these things. It is not their fault they can’t be expected to support them’.

Outside the school, on the village green, some post office engineers were erecting a telephone kiosk.

‘We’ve been four years getting that’ said Mr Battison. ‘Twice men have been down to look at the site, and plans have been sent to me, at approximately yearly intervals. At last it is going to be put up.’

 

So Denton has now got its own public telephone kiosk.

 

Denton’s lack of money is reflected in its purchase of National Savings Certificates.

These, I was told at the Post Office, have been selling very badly. It is the schoolchildren again who are making the effort and who have formed groups to buy savings stamps.

Moreover if victory for Denton was dependent upon digging, then it is likely the village would suffer defeat!

For I gather that only about half of the available allotments are under cultivation.

The young people these days are just not sufficiently enthusiastic these days to bend their backs to the spade.

 

Two more pumps needed

 

Nevertheless, if the village lacks this type of enthusiasm, it seems to be well countered by their acute sensitiveness to war possibilities, as indicated by their swiftly suspicious reactions to my presence.

Indeed, as the vicar told me, the A.R.P. arrangements have run very smoothly as well as energetically.

 

All we want now’ he said ‘is our full quota of stirrup pumps. We’ve got two; and we should have four’.

 

Enrolment for the Civil Defence Volunteer Corps also seems brisk, and the Rev. Eltoft even suggested that Denton ought to have a few machine-guns for defensive purposes.

I hope they get them, but, if and when they do, I shall feel glad that Denton has been ‘covered’ on my list of villages.

Otherwise I might not ‘return to tell the tale!’

 

A different viewpoint of the war is given by Peter Walker who was a very young Dentonian at the time He writes :

 

'I was three years old. It was a bright, sunny Sunday, on 3rd September 1939, not a cloud in the sky where I lived in Denton Northamtonshire. It was the day war broke out.
We didn’t have a wireless set and about 12 o’clock my father had gone to the pub for a pint when the next door neighbour came in . It was Mrs Percival ,who had a wireless set, and she told my mother that we were at war with Germany. A few minutes later there was an alert and at that moment my father came home from the pub. We went into the field adjoining the house to look for German planes, but there were none. This is my first memory of the war.

Some weeks later, we were told that the evacuees were coming, and my mother and I went to the village green to wait to greet them. Double decker buses came ( I think there were 6) and brought the evacuees who were taken

into the village school. There they were allocated to homes and we had a mother and two children. They stayed with us for about 3 months and because the bombing had not started, they went home. Later when the bombing started in earnest we had a girl, older than me, probably aged 7, from Walthamstow. Her name was Rosie Morad. Rosie stayed with us for 2 years. During a lull in the bombing her mother fetched her back. Our house was full of tears,I remember, because Mother had got attached to her. I missed her. We used to play bombing.I used to sit under the table and she banged on it. Those were the bombs! I was sad to lose my playmate. Later in the war when the V1s started we had another evacuee called Bernice Windsor. I don’t remember her as well as I remember Rosie. She was older than me and didn’t stay as long.
One of my clearest memories: it was Bank holiday Monday 1942. We had walked to the next village Yardley Hastings, about 2 miles away, to see my grandmother. My father’s oldest brother Uncle Jim was with my mother and me My father was the youngest of 11 children.

 

A poignant and slightly sad story, told in her own words, comes from Mrs Mavis Coates (nee Armstrong).

 

‘My name was Mavis Armstrong and these are my memories during my stay as an evacuee to Denton.

 

My sister and I along with a number of other children left our homes in Essex arriving at Denton after a long journey late in the evening. We were all assembled in the school where the villagers seemed rather surprised to see us, after some sorting out we were taken around the village to find out who would take us into their homes. Myself and an older girl were taken to Church House I had the impression they were not very happy about it but the lady of the house decided to take me in as I was the younger of the two and would be less trouble at nine years old.

 

I was very nervous at all that was happening around me. My sister Freda was taken to a house at the other side of the village. I was only allowed to see her at school, we were not able to visit each other even on our birthdays or at Christmas.

 

I did enjoy my days at school and Church. I remember singing in the choir stalls, the Rev. Eltoft was very kind to us, sometimes we went up to the Vicarage in a group. I felt very proud when I was given an award of an A & M Hymn book at Christmas 1944.

 

One of my most vivid memories was of the village butcher slaughtering a pig and then giving the bladder to a group of boys which was then blown up and used as a football, toys were one of the things that were scarce.

 

The lady of the house had a companion called Mrs Foxen, she looked after me during my stay in Denton. Peter Pan was on at the theatre in Northampton, most of the village children had been to see it, the lady of the house had decided I could go as a treat. I was so excited but it was not to be, my mother turned up unexpectedly and told us she was taking me home.

 

That was the end of my year in Denton. I have revisited the village recently and realized what a beautiful place it is’.