大象传媒

I was born on November 6th 1939, just after war was declared. My father was in the Fire Service and served all through the blitz in London鈥檚 East End. My early memories are from the wonderful stories that my dad used to tell us. He would say that when he was driving the fire engine along the road a doodle-bug could be heard and he would have to turn the fire engine around and drive in the opposite direction.
One day we all went to the shelter before a raid. When we came back our house had been bombed to the ground. We were evacuated to Westerham in Kent to a big country house. My cousin Johnny and me went with my mum and my Aunt Ada. My cousin and I were of school age and had to go a long way by bus to get to school. I didn鈥檛 like school much; people thought we talked funny.
Sometimes dad would come. He used to take me into the woods and collect chestnuts and we would come home and roast them on an open fire. After a while we went back to live with my mother鈥檚 mum in East London. The bombing was very heavy and we were evacuated again to Derby. When we arrived we all stood together and some ladies came along and picked us out.
As time went on we all managed to cope with our new surroundings.
At last word came that we could all go home again. I had a new sister by now.

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