大象传媒

Issued with gas masks in a little cardboard box, we made our way back and forth to school. My younger brother had a 鈥楳ickey Mouse鈥� one which made me jealous. School attendance was reduced to half a day 鈥� one week mornings and the next week afternoons. Sometimes we had gas mask practice. A call of 鈥淕as鈥� made us all stop whatever we were doing, put on our masks and march to the shelters which had been hastily built or dug out nearby. The exercise was timed and anyone not taking it seriously would be caned. Once in the shelter an inspection would take place to make sure we had our gas masks on properly. Babies at home were put into a large tent contraption with an air pump. We never had to use our gas masks for real, thank goodness.

Blackout was real enough though. Not a single chink of light was to be shown. Even vehicles on the road had hooded lights. We soon became used to stumbling about in the dark with the aid of a torch. I remember sticky-tape criss-crossed on all the windows to prevent the glass from scattering about when blown out by bomb blast. Some people even put wooden shutters on their windows. Buckets of sand, buckets of water, and stirrup pumps too, were part of your life. 鈥楧ig for Victory, made gardens into vegetable patches, iron railings were cut down for scrap metal, and aluminium pans were handed in for melting down.

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