Expelled From Cruxton Abbey
Barb, Alice and Lily were seniors in their final year in 1940, when their school was evacuated to Cruxton Abbey, and adopted the name of its new home. Lord Wragg's spacious seventeenth century residence also provided facilities for the Cruxton Home Guard, which the seniors joined en masse during the tense days of the Battle of Britain. All three were rated as competent marksmen by the time preparations were in hand for Halloween.
A fortnight's unrelieved diet of mashed turnips had inspired the more rebellious aspects of their character as well as the creation of a cartload of Halloween lanterns, fashioned from the shells of the offending turnips. When the three seniors were instructed to distribute the lanterns in the grounds, in preparation for the annual Cruxton Halloween celebrations, they carted them to the armoury, collected three Lee Enfield .303s, matching bolts and a hundred rounds of ammunition, before proceeding to the lacrosse pitch.
Suddenly awakened from his customary afternoon nap by the sound of gunfire, Lord Wragg telephoned the vicar of St. Crux, the irreverent Bob Inder, instructing him to ring the church bells to signal the invasion. Colonel Jollyrei responded by racing hot-foot to the Home Guard Office, where he found his second in command, a Major Fiasco and a state of confusion.
Having exhausted their ammunition as well as the turnip lanterns, Barb, Alice and Lily returned to the armoury, where they were relieved of their weapons by the officers and summarily expelled by the Headmistress. Unfortunately, there are no armed forces records for any of them following their discharge from the Home Guard, which notes concisely that each provided, 'exemplary service'.
That would have been the end of the story, except for an obscure reference in Vassily Ilyasov's
'Illustrated History of the Great Patriotic War' (Pravda 1997) which quotes Stalin's attributed response to Zhukov, concerning the invasion of East Prussia, 'The battle of Eydtkuhnen was won on the playing fields of Cruxton Abbey...'