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This story was submitted to the people war Website by a volunteer from Tiverton Museum of Mid Devon Life on behalf of Jeanette MacDonald.

JEANETTE MACDONALD

In was born in 1938. I was too young to be afraid of the war because I didn’t know any different. My clearest memory was of the air raids. My Mummy was claustrophobic and wouldn’t be separated from me and wouldn’t go into the Anderson shelters. When the bombs came in the blitz (1940) we used to hide under the table. Mummy said ‘if we go, we go together’ and I replied ‘where were we going?’ and she said ‘to the pictures’.

When my Daddy found out we didn’t go into the shelters he was very upset and told Mummy to take me there. He was in the Army in the REME.

In August 1944 we were bombed out (we lived in Leyton, London). It was the house I was born in. I remember standing holding my Mummy’s hand and she was crying. My Mummy was pregnant at the time. Luckily we weren’t in the house at the time but my granddad, Charlie, was in the cellar and they got him out alive although he was badly injured. (He lived on for a few years afterwards). He was found with our dog, Paddy, on top of him, licking his face. The dog survived too. We think the dog saved him by licking the dust off his face and helping him to breathe!

We had to move to West Ham to my Aunt Flo, Mummy’s sister. Malcolm, my brother, was born there in December 1944. We were bombed out of that house too although again we were not in it at the time. We finally moved back to Leyton where I lived for 57 years!

I had lots of memories of the bombing. I remember being in the picture when the big garage was bombed but I was more upset about Bambi’s mum dying in the film!

I also remember the women counting the ‘silence’ of the doodlebugs just before they exploded.

A good memory was of my Dad sending American chocolates in a box, which he got from a US General, and my Mother made chocolate biscuits — a real ‘treat’.

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