Two Villages in World War Two by Kate Jones
Two villages - one is in the middle of England, the other lies on the south Wales coast. Two old, established communities with venerable histories, two hundred miles apart – for the modern traveller. You might have passed the English village, driving along the A6 or speeding through on the main railway line (the little station closed in 1968). The Welsh village is west of Swansea.
Kibworth is an area in Leicestershire (about 10 miles south-east of Leicester) comprised of three civil parishes – Kibworth Beauchamp, Kibworth Harcourt and Smeaton Westerby. In the 2011 census they had a combined population of 7,770. The other village is, of course, Mumbles. Its population in 2011 was 16,600.
In 2010 Kibworth was the central feature of historian and broadcaster Michael Wood’s BBC TV documentary, The Story of England. In 2018 The Sunday Times listed Mumbles as the best place in Wales to live.
The connection between these two villages is not defined by motorways or railway lines, but in a small piece of shared history during World War II.
The Mumbles Letters to the Forces were monthly letters written by the Mumbles Correspondence Committee (MCC) between October 1939 and August 1945 and posted to men and women of Mumbles who were away from home serving their country during the Second World War. The majority of the letters were written by Councillor Harry Libby. He lived all his life in Southend, and after First World War naval service returned home to run a travel, shipping and insurance agency in the Dunns.
Harry Libby’s premises in the Dunns, a wartime centre where information about those serving away was gathered and shared. [OHA archive]
The numbers of monthly letters increased as more and more men and women were posted away. At the start of 1942, after two years of writing, Libby was very pleased to have some help – Miss Betty V. Howard of Overland Road would write to the women. “We’ve discovered a splendid source of help” he wrote in his letter of 28th February 1942, “and when you’ve perused Miss Howard’s contribution you’ll agree. Must see how this source can be further tapped!”
Betty Howard described how she became involved: “Your good friend who writes monthly came into the Y.M.C.A. Canteen the other evening. I told him I envied his opportunity of expressing his appreciation of the sacrifices you are making for our victory and the fulfilment of our dreams of freedom and peace.” Betty was a busy lady. Among other things, she and her mother set up and ran a Red Cross canteen.
She also assisted her father with his Home Guard responsibilities. Captain Howard (who had served in the Boer War and the First World War) was Admin. officer for C. Company of the 12th Battalion. She was a fluent writer (of short stories) who went on to be a journalist for the Swansea Voice and the Evening Post.
Betty Howard’s ‘recruitment’ by Harry Libby was very timely! On 18th December 1941 the National Service Act (No. 2) made Britain the first nation to conscript women. At first only single women between the ages of 20 and 30 were called up, but by mid-1943 90% of single women and 80% of married women were employed in the women’s auxiliary services, Civil Defence, Women’s Land Army and industry. More women were going away and it was important to have a woman who could write letters specifically for them. As a ‘Mumbles lass’ herself, Betty Howard was ideally suited for the job of writing “Dear Lassie” every month, boosting morale, sympathising with homesickness, delighting in smart uniforms and amusing her readers (men and women) with anecdotes about life on the Mumbles Home Front.
In her second letter, March 1942, she cheerfully reflected that: “It’s fashionable to look shabby these days. Britannia rules the waves, but how she manages without hairclips puzzles me. I had some elastic in Kemps last week. Faith is a good thing, but not much good to rely on for the unmentionables.” Because most of Britain’s natural rubber had been imported from countries in the Far East (now occupied by Japan) there was a shortage of rubber which was needed for tyres for planes and military vehicles.
This meant there was also a chronic shortage of elastic – vital for keeping-up underwear! In September: “Elastic is still scarce. I suppose the moral would be: it is better to save an airman’s life than a maiden’s modesty!” Safety pins (a replacement for worn out elastic) were also hard to get. In April 1944 she wrote: “Thank goodness the elastic supply is stretched because it meant taking a baby shopping to be able to purchase safety pins!!!” The situation obviously did not improve as she was still writing in September 1944: “Idealists trust faith but realists prefer elastic!”
A shortage of nuts in the village provoked this piece in her Christmas 1944 letter: “One fruiterer was almost on his knees to a towering, angry-eyed spinster (not guilty this time!) and he addressed her pathetically but firmly: ‘Indeed Madam, I’ve only got 12lbs of nuts to share amongst umpteen customers, so I’m allocating ¼lb per family with children, and … it’s not MY fault you haven’t a child.’”
Thus, from early 1942, two monthly Mumbles letters - printed back to back – were written and posted abroad. By November 1943, 1200 Mumbles women and men (including prisoners of war in Europe and the Far East) serving away were receiving letters from home written by Harry Libby and Betty Howard.
A close reading of Betty Howard’s letter dated March 1943 highlights the connection between Mumbles and another community, far away. “By the way,” she wrote, “if any of you are serving in Kibworth Leicester, will you let me know? I have the honour of writing for the Kibworth News, a magazine on the same principle as the M.C.C. [the Mumbles Correspondence Committee]
I would like to introduce you, via the pen, to the Editor Mr. [Leslie] Lewis Clarke, who, I am sure, would be happy to exchange the hospitality which Mumbles Folk offer to all serving in H.M. Forces.” Men and women were stationed all over Britain and those in Mumbles were welcomed and looked after by villagers.
The Kibworth News and Forces Journal, published twice a year between March 1940 and August 1945, was a substantial production of between twenty and forty pages. Its purpose was the same as the Mumbles letters – to keep up the morale of local servicemen and women serving away from home by providing news from Kibworth and surrounding villages. It was to be: ‘The LINK that bound when circumstances parted.’ Editor Leslie Lewis Clarke wrote how cautious the Home Office initially was about locals sending news abroad that could help the enemy. In addition there were difficulties gathering information from the neighbouring villages and hamlets and restrictions on the amount of paper that could be used. Despite these constraints the pages of the journal were filled, twice a year. But perhaps more could be offered to his female readers?
Then in early 1942 Leslie Clarke heard Harry Libby talking about Mumbles in a BBC radio broadcast (‘In Town Tonight’). Contact was made and Clarke subsequently wrote to Betty Howard inviting her to write to the women of Kibworth. He wrote (in the Kibworth News) that his: ‘age and old world philosophy’ would ‘not appeal to the younger’ women. As a result, Betty Howard started to write for the Kibworth News and her first ‘Letter from Mumbles’ was printed in the autumn 1942 edition.
“FROM MISS BETTY V. HOWARD, The Mumbles, Swansea, 1942.”
“Dear Girls in ‘Arms’ … You girls from Kibworth & District are fighting with ours, and what a fine job you are all doing. This Christmas you may be far from home, stationed here – who knows? Unused to the sea … but at least you’ll not be lonely. We Mumbles folk, like you Kibworthians, believe in ‘Doing unto others as we would have others do unto us’. …”
A year later, “One day in Spring 1943” Betty Howard wrote to:
“Dear Women at War” from “MUMBLES, SOUTH WALES”.
Pondering what those in and from Kibworth made of her (“Never `eard of `er”) she explained “I am just a very ordinary individual … but my sincerity for your well-being has prompted me to accept this opportunity, which your Editor, Mr. Clarke, has so kindly offered me, to introduce you to Mumbles.” After describing Mumbles village and the bays and beaches, she went on to say: “We, of Mumbles, join you, of Kibworth & District, in looking forward to the day when war will be a thing of the past; when we, just two small villages of Britain, can prove good examples to the world as symbols of Peace.”
By the 1945 Victory Edition, Betty was well-known in Kibworth District as ‘Our Lady Correspondent’. With peace on the horizon she wrote: “After the war I shall, I hope, see your lovely Kibworth and District. Maybe you and I will talk together. … I am honoured to have the pleasure of inviting you to accept [our] hospitality … should you visit Mumbles, Swansea, South Wales.”
Two villages, one in the middle of England, the other on the south Wales coast, 200 miles apart - for three wartime years ‘linked’ by the letters of Betty Howard.
Kate Jones, Mumbles, January 2020
Acknowledgements: Oystermouth Historical Association archive; The Mumbles Letters to the Forces; The Kibworth News and Forces Journal; www.kibworth.org ; Grafton Maggs: The Howard family. Photographs: Harry Libby’s shop (OHA archive); Betty Howard (private collection); Fougasse salvage poster (Wikipedia); St. Wilfred’s church, Kibworth Harcourt and Kibworth News and Journal (Kibworth History Society).
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By Kate Jones
Mumbles United Comforts Fund and Correspondence Committee was formed, with the aims, ‘to let the lads and lasses know that Mumbles has not forgotten them, to give them some local news and to keep them informed with news of their pals.