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War was sometimes hilarious and sometimes sad. I was absolutely amazed by the courage of ordinary people. We saw a shelter blown up once — two hundred people were killed in it. I was glad I wasn’t in there. Once I saw in London where a bomb had come down and it had more or less blown the front out of the house. The lavatory was in the front and sitting on it was on old lady. She stood up and pulled up her baggy knee length bloomers. Oh well she shouted out, ‘I bet those b............ haven’t ever seen a good pair of British bloomers. Let them come back and I’ll wipe their faces with it’. She forgot completely the danger she was in but I bet she felt ill afterwards. We used to feel a bit sick sometimes after the bombs. It was the courage of people who lived in London that struck me— I just can’t explain it.

Looking back, I enjoyed it although I didn’t like the war part of it. I remember troops coming back from France and some of them were injured. They came off the ship — they marched off and they were really injured some of them, there were nurses waiting for them, but I really swelled with pride to see those men. I thought that by me joining up, I was contributing. For the rest of the war I had a picture of those men marching off — it was really heartening so sometimes if I did feel down, it made me feel better.

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