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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Sarah Housden of Norfolk Adult Education’s reminiscence team on behalf on John Worby and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was seven when the war started so I saw it as a child. The thing I remember is going down the Anderson shelters in the dark. My father dug ours in our garden. At the start of the war I lived in Ipswich and I remember this plane coming over – a German one, dropping bombs, and a Hurricane was following it. There was a railway station near where I lived, on the Felixstowe line, and there was a bomb dropped behind the signal box. I remember all the glass being blown out, and then the Hurricane shot the German down, and it was like Ipswich scoring a goal, the way everyone cheered. After that we moved to Dereham in Norfolk and things were much quieter there. There were a few Doodlebugs, but we were never really affected. Bombs were dropped on the outskirts rather than on Dereham itself. My father was working on the railways and was exempt from military service. We were hard up, but never went without anything. We grew vegetables to make up our rations

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