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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Avril Hudson of the Chineham Learning Centre on behalf of Don Macnamara and has been added to the site with his permission. The author understands the site's terms and conditions.

MY MEMORIES

I was 10 years old when there was the declaration of war, and lived in Totnes Devon. The following day the siren sounded and we all hid under the stairs, anticipating a raid but nothing happened and this was the start of the phoney war.

My first real recollection was Dunkirk and the return of the troops who had disembarked at Plymouth on route to London. They stopped at Totnes for refreshment and we helped serve them. I remember how cheerful they all seemed, there were a lot of Nationalities, English, French, Belgians and others.

There was a long period when life was more or less normal and routine the only difficulty was the rationing.

The town was fund raising to help the war including buying a Spitfire which in those days cost £5,000!

We moved to Exmouth in 1942, the coastal towns suffered what were known as ‘Tip and Run’ raids – these were where the German aircraft flew from behind the towns and dropped their bombs on the way back to avoid the British defences. One particular raid where the school suffered a near miss and students on the football field were strafed by machine gun fire. Out of school I was co-opted as a ‘Fireguard Messenger’, taking messages from various points in the town.

I was one of the fortunate children located in a relatively safe area and so to us the war was exciting, we were too young to understand the danger.

My father was an original member of the L.D.V. – Local Defence Volunteers in Totnes, later to be known as the Homeguard. He was a machine gunner in the WW1 and was therefore given the honour of having the only machine gun in that unit! I remember him demonstrating to us how quickly he could unjam the machine gun on our back lawn!!

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