大象传媒

Jean Lesley Kitt from Stockport, now living in Rhyl tells us of her childhood memories, growing up during the war.

I was only 11 at the time, but I remember there was a build-up to the war and in August 1939, Daddy鈥檚 car had to be painted white all around the bottom and had to have a red sign in the windscreen. You see, he was a doctor, so it was important for the car to be seen during the night and for the blackout. The next thing I noticed that the edge of the pavements were painted white, and this was for drivers to see where they were going when blackout occurred.

My parents knew what was ahead of us, so Daddy made protection for our house so all of us would be safe. It was a very large house, and we had staff working for us, e.g. maids etc. He had an expert in and got the miner鈥檚 pit props in the cellars to keep the roof up and sandbags all around the downstairs windows. One of the cellars was turned into a bedroom, and a door was knocked through to the house next door, so that we had an alternative escape route. Manchester, which was quite close to us, had three full nights of bombing and I remember that so well because I could see the masses and masses of German planes, and could hear the artillery. I could also hear flack bouncing off the helmets of the air raid wardens outside! Daddy had a close friend in Manchester - a surgeon 鈥� who he spoke to the night before the bombing. The next day however, he heard that his friend was killed in the bombing along with his wife and children.

I can remember a landmine being dropped near our school, but luckily it didn鈥檛 explode 鈥� it just left a very large crater in the ground. If it would have exploded, the whole area would have been destroyed, and everybody would have died. When we went to the school the next morning, all the teachers were covered in plaster that had fallen from the ceiling! We were ordered back home, and couldn鈥檛 return for two to three days. Every time in the middle of lessons, if the air raid siren would sound, we had to go down the shelters that were under our school. The teachers had also told us that if we heard a plane on our way home from school, we had to lie completely still in the gutter. We had to this because at the time, planes were coming over from France and machine gunning anything that move. The amazing this was, as kids we weren鈥檛 scared at all, I think we were too young - we just carried on with our lives.

Our school adopted a ship during the war, and all the girls wrote letters to the sailors. When the ship came back home for a refit, the captain came to see the headmistress and I remember we all had to assemble in the hall to see him. I had a pen-friend in America for a while, but we led very different lives during the war. I don鈥檛 think she understood the bombing we had over here as she didn鈥檛 experience it at all.

We didn鈥檛 seem to do too badly with the rationing, we managed well. But we did see a difference! We had wonderful food before the war, as we were quite wealthy in those days. Some people bought food from the black market, but we didn鈥檛. We never saw any bananas or oranges, and because of sweet rationing, we didn鈥檛 see much of those either!

Clothes rationing went on for a while after the war, and when my sister got married, we had to save up all our coupons so she could have a bridal dress.

We had two telephones at home, one on the desk downstairs in the dining room and one upstairs in the bedroom. The latter was used for Daddy鈥檚 work, because he was always called out during the night. He was such a kind man as he would never refuse to go out. He always used to say to me 鈥渘ine times out of ten, there鈥檚 nothing the matter, but there鈥檚 always that one time, when it could be.鈥�

At one point my parents were thinking of sending my sister and myself to America, but in the end decided against it, so that we could all be together. Unfortunately, Daddy died in 1943 of an asthma attack, which I鈥檓 sure was due to hard work. After that our income was much lower and we had to move into a smaller house.

I remember going for an afternoon walk with my mother, when we saw three German airmen walking towards us. When we went to report them to the Home Guard, he just replied 鈥淥h, they won鈥檛 get very far, somebody will pick them up!鈥� He wasn鈥檛 bothered at all! Another time when a French plane crashed down near our home, a young pilot climbed out and went to the nearest house. He was let in and had a cup of tea with the lady of the house, and later she told everybody how nice he was and that it was his birthday! It was strange how one minute they were our enemies, the next our friends.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.