大象传媒

I was a young child in Canvey in Essex where my mother worked as a pharmacist. As we were living over a shop and had no garden, we had no room for an Anderson shelter. Instead, we had a Morrison shelter and every night my mum, my sister and I would be in the shelter. I can remember it as a huge orange table that we used during the day and slept under at night.

When I was five I started school in Canvey and I can remember being one of twenty pupils in a class. Ernie Benson was our headmaster and his wife Doris was our teacher
My father had been called up in 1940 and had been serving as RAF ground crew until 1945 when he was sent to Denmark to work for the Control Commission who was getting rid of arms. This was very difficult for my mother as whilst everyone else had been celebrating VE Day my father had had to go away.

One evening in November 1945 I was upstairs in bed when my mother came running up the stairs shouting, 鈥淒addy鈥檚 coming home. He鈥檚 at Dover and will be home tomorrow鈥�
I can still remember the excitement I felt then as a seven year old boy. My time as the only male in an all female household of my mother, aunt and sister was over and a completely new life was starting for me.

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