大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Dunstable At War Team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was 7 years old at the beginning of the war. I remember our next door neighbour had her radio on when it was announced that war had been declared. My mother was in a terrible state and fainted because my brother, who was 12 years older than myself, would have to go to war. This upset her greatly. My father had been in the First World War and was reported missing three days before the armistice was signed. Fortunately, he was aright but my mother still had lots of memories of that time.

My parents belonged to the Salvation Army and we lived at 5 Kirby Road in Dunstable. We didn鈥檛 have a shelter ourselves but the family across the road from us did and although we always had the opportunity to go there, my mother told us to go and hide in the cupboard under the stairs and put a cushion over our heads!

Soon after war was announced, the siren sounded and my mother heard this loud explosion. She was sure a bomb had dropped in our back garden so she fetched the ARP to our house. My father came home to find them digging up his vegetables! She was convinced a bomb had dropped in our garden but of course there was nothing there!

My father was a stoker at the Dunstable gas works and cleaned Lloyds Bank to make a little extra money. He also had an allotment near the cemetery in West Street. Dunstable had some very good shops in the town centre during the 1940s. My mother used Barleys butchers in Princes Street and the Home and Colonial on the corner of Church Street. For entertainment we went to the cinema in High Street North and played quizzes and games in the Salvation Army. My father and brother were also in the band.

My brother was 19 and became a valet to an Officer in the Beds and Herts regiment of the army. On one occasion he ran up the stairs and started gasping for breath. The Officer asked him if he was always breathless after exercise. He said yes, so although he had passed a previous medical he was discharged from the army which upset him immensely, he was very depressed about that. My mother was naturally pleased but there was a lot of nasty talk from some of the other mothers; they were very unkind. My brother then got a job in the Dunstable Gas Showrooms in High Street North, opposite Grove House.

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