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I remember ‘the day war broke out’ very well. My sister and I were standing in our garden in Staines with our Mum when all of a sudden the air raid siren went — up and down, up and down, oh what a sound that was, made our tummies go over and over. I remember our Mum burst into tears and our next door neighbour did too.

I remember well being woken up in the middle of the night when the air raid siren went and our Mum walking us down the garden to the Anderson air raid shelter at the bottom of the garden; there was quite often nearly 2ft. of water in there and we had to climb onto our bunk beds. I cant remember what sort of mattress we had on the ‘bed’, but I can still see the interwoven flexible steel strips that made up the bed base. Dad would pull in the big heavy wooden door and tuck us up for the night. How damp, wet and dark these conditions were yet I don’t remember being ill — what a difference to our centrally heated homes today!

I also remember when I first went to school in Staines; when the air raid siren went, we were all hurdled into the cloakroom and had to sit on oval raffia gym mats. Not much ‘shelter’ as it was only a cloakroom! I can also recall when a bomb dropped during the night in the next street to ours and being frightened to go to school next day for what we might see; houses were flattened to the ground and one lady was dead. As kids I remember rummaging through this mass of debris to find bits of slate from the roofs and we would look for two similar sized pieces and put them between our first two fingers to make ‘clackers’.

Our Mum used to tell us, is you see a German plane go over when you are out — lay down or stand perfectly still - and the Germans would think we were a tree or just an obstacle and hopefully wouldn’t drop a bomb on us. (As if they could see that far up, things we believed as kids).

I can also see the sticky tape (and remember the smell) that was put on the windows to stop them breaking.

I remember Ration Books with bread at 4.1/2d a loaf; when sweets were first taken OFF the ration, everyone went mad to buy them and they had to be put back on ration again. Those were the days!

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