Cheddar Patrol

The Patrol first chose a cave on the hill near Axbridge, but on their first night there they found themselves watched by a group of children, so had to move elsewhere.

The new site was in a limestone cave, Great Oone's Hole. They built up the front entrance with stones and ivy and built a trapdoor, disguised with grass on top. Inside they built bunks with wire mesh and a galvanised cupboard for wet clothes. There was an oil stove and a biscuit tin oven. Arthur Pavey set up a water tank on a frame to catch the dips from the limestone ceiling so they had a supply. A pipe brought the water down to a tap. To access the OB it was necessary to climb down from above.

Arthur Parsons recalled that their OB was linked by field telephone to their Observation Post on the top of the gorge, the cable carefully buried.

Arthur Parsons on the OB: "We decided between ourselves we had to find somewhere. We went up the gorge and started digging, under the rock. And as we were up there, some kids come along. And then we said we aren't going to stay here, we'll have to find somewhere else. And then somebody decided about this cave, Great Oone's, oh, marvellous place it were, just what we wanted. We built the front of the cave up with stones and ivy and a trapdoor with grass for to lift up and go down in. We did it ourselves at nights. We built some bunks in there with wire netting and a place with Jack's galvanised for airing wet clothes. Then they decided what would happen if they got cut off. How would we live. Up on the hill, get some swedes and turnips, catch a few rabbits and have a stew up like. We had an oil stove and an oven like a biscuit tin for to go on top of the stove. Art Pavey would say “We’ve got a delivery tonight” and we’d go there about 7pm and carry it up. The hardest work I think was climbing up over to the cave. The Army brought it up from Taunton. Always at night. All the stuff we buried underneath the rocks, on the side, cause it had a dirt and stone floor in there. We had gelignite and time pencils and pull switches, Molotov cocktails ­ they were brought, like bottles of milk, that were the phosphorus ones, and we had sticky bombs. The Gelignite was moved out and back about once a month to help stop it getting sweaty. We went up every night, Usually two of us to make sure everything was alright and probably stay the night and the next night somebody else would go up. Once a week we would all go and stay. We had a telephone from inside the cave and buried the wire all up onto the top of the gorge and in case of emergency we would send a man up on top. Our orders were when the church bells started ringing we had to disappear. No code word. You didn’t go home, you just went straight to the base".

Jack Chew on the OB: "We had to try and find a place for a base. We tried in Axbridge. There was a cave at the side of the hill at Axbridge and twasn't very successful. We started thinking what we would do and the first night we were there some kids came up and started playing around so that was out. Under Axbridge Hill. Then we got a place up the Gorge, Great Oone's Hole. We camouflaged the front of it with mud and rocks and trees and things. We got told off. It was something to do with temperature in the caves, the air came through there and we had blocked it off. We had to pull it all done and leave it as it was. Anyway it was pretty secret as nobody would climb up there ordinarily. Art Pavey was a plumber and we fixed up a tank, made a tank to put this tank on and he had a pipe coming down with a tap on. 

We had an airing cupboard with an oil heater to put our coats on. We had a phone from a look out at the top, looked down across the moors. We had bunks but no cooker because we didn't stay there. We had billy cans and all that ready. You can just imagine us boys taking those ammunition boxes, you now what they were like, on your shoulder. The telephone wire wasn't buried, just run amongst the ivy. There wasn't a trap door on the cave, Art Parsons must be getting mixed up with the airing cupboard".