Description
Physical description
Skipping rope made from a length of rope with a pair of simple hand-crafted wooden handles - one at either end - and the wood taken from a D-Day Landing Craft.
History note
Account written by Hazel W Perkin:
"It was Saturday, 3rd June 1944, I was living in Ryde, Isle of Wight and the Solent between Ryde and Portsmouth was a mass of landing craft, with troops waiting for the signal for the invasion to begin.
I was a 12 year old Girl Guide and, that afternoon, three of us set out in uniform to walk the two miles along the winding sea wall to Seaview, to take our Hostess badges. Later that day, happy and successful, our new badges in hand, we went down the lane to have a picnic on the pebble beach. We had all taken our skipping ropes with us, and mine was special, with ball bearing in the handles. I was very proud of it.
Suddenly someone said, "It's getting dark! We haven't got time to go back along the wall. It will be too dark to see in the blackout. Why don't we walk along the beach? On the wet sand it's quicker, and even though the tide's coming in, if we hurry we can make it."
We got safely back to Ryde, and were just about to go up the steps to the Esplanade when I realised I had left my skipping rope on the beach at Seaview. I was very upset. It was impossible to buy another one during the war. There was an agitated discussion as we tried to think of a possible solution, and by then it was almost completely dark.
Three soldiers were leaning over the sea wall watching us. One of them called out and asked what was the matter. I explained about my skipping rope. They said that they didn't have anything to do that evening and would go and look for it. I told them where I had been on the beach, just by the Toll Gate, and gave them my name and address.
The next evening, after I had gone to bed, there was a knock at my front door. When my mother answered it, there stood two soldiers. They explained that they had walked to Seaview and had searched the beach as best they could in the dark, but they had not found my skipping rope, so they had decided to make me one. They took a length of rope and two of the wooden pieces for handles from the side of a landing craft and made a skipping rope. I have treasured my well-used rope all these years.
Late on that Monday evening, as the boats slid silently away to France, I hoped those soldiers would survive the D-Day landing. I never did learn their names, but I would have liked them to know how grateful that young Girl Guide was."
