- Contributed by听
- Bramley History Society
- People in story:听
- Barbara Dunn
- Location of story:听
- Chichester, Sussex and Abingdon, Oxfordshire
- Background to story:听
- Civilian
- Article ID:听
- A4441501
- Contributed on:听
- 12 July 2005
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This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Bramley History Society and has been added to the website on behalf of Barbara Dunn with her permission and she fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.
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In 1939 I was a pupil at Chichester High school although my home was in north London. Whilst there, war was declared during a church service in the village of East Marden, and I remember the vicar saying that he would end the sermon early, so that we could all listen to the Prime Minister speaking on the radio.
I was staying with friends of my family at the time and my parents phoned them to ask if I could stay with them for the rest of the war, thus I became probably the first evacuee of the war!
During the first year of the war I continued my schooling in Chichester, but by the summer of 1940 my mother decided that I should return home because in her words 鈥淭he Germans would soon be marching down Chichester High Street鈥. So, shortly after I returned home to north London just in time for the blitz! A couple of days before going home I vividly remember a German bomber being chased out to sea by British fighters flying so low that I could clearly see the rear gunner鈥檚 face.
When I returned home my father decided the safest place at home was the hallway in the middle of our house, and that is where we all slept, and on occasions some of our neighbours as well.
My father worked for Esso Petroleum, and about six months after I had returned home the government decided that the head offices of all oil companies would be relocated to Milton Hill near Abingdon in Oxfordshire. This obviously caused many problems for Abingdon having about 75 extra families to cope with. There was also some friction at school between us girl evacuee pupils and the existing borders, but by the end of the war we all got on very well.
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