大象传媒

I was three years old when the Second World War began and still very young when it ended but I have some vivid memories of it. Not dramatic ones, I was lucky being evacuated away from the worst of the bombing of London to my Aunt鈥檚 in Essex and then my Grandmothers in Bournemouth. So these are little snapshots of what a young child remembers of the war, not moments of bravery or thankfully not times of great sorrow.

My first memory was being carried down to the air raid shelter at the bottom of the garden in the arms of my father in my siren suit, the fires at the Surrey Docks made it almost like daylight. I also seem to remember seeing a sign on the pub at the top of the road with 鈥淐ourage鈥� on it, but at the age of three, I could not read and there was a blackout. Memories can play tricks with you. It was a useless air raid shelter because it filled up with water every time it rained so we spent most of those early days of the Battle of Britain huddled in the cupboard under the stairs. Although families around us were bombed out and for my mother it must have been very frightening my only worrying memory was the day the door closed on us and the lock being on the outside we could not get out. I used to look forward to the morning going out into the garden and collecting the shrapnel from the anti-aircraft guns that fired over our house from the local park. I had a huge collection of jagged bits of metal that I prized.

When the bombing was really bad we went to say with our relations. In Essex my Uncle was the local photographer besides being the village barber and tobacco shop proprietor. He used to go the local Prisoner of War Camp and take their photographs. I saw lots of their photographs but never met a German, but on my birthday and at Christmas my Uncle would bring beautifully crafted toys home for me that the German prisoners had made. I can remember one being a chicken on wheels that when you pushed it along the wings flapped.

My Father was in the RAF and was posted to the Gambia for most of the war. I must have been two or three when he left and being so young very soon had no real memory of him except for the picture of him in his uniform that sat on the sideboard. I suppose I was six or seven by the time he returned and can remember the excitement of my mother and being allowed to stay up to greet him on his return. But to me this was a stranger that walked through the door. He looked like the picture on the sideboard but I did not remember him. Who was this man who came into our lives? I felt very shy and I am sure did not greet him in the way he might have hoped. But I liked to have him meet me from school in this uniform and show him of to my friends. I suppose like many other children those war years made me 鈥渁 mothers boy鈥� although I was very young I sensed the importance of the bond these times created.

When it was believed that the risk of an invasion was over we moved down to Bournemouth where I went first went to school. Besides my mother and myself my Aunt and my cousin where staying at my grandmother鈥檚 house. My cousin was an attractive nineteen year old and a great favourite at the local RAF bomber station. The house was always full of Canadian aircrew. When they flew out at night on bombing raids they used to change the pitch of their engines as they flew over the house. We would then all wait until they returned knowing that they were home safely again by the change sound of their engines.

As the bombing decreased we returned home to London. One day my Mother had managed to get tickets to a pantomime in London at the Coliseum. While we were watching the show the air raid sirens went, the show went on nobody moved and the raid past without incident, until we got home. We discovered that an aircraft in the raid had machine gunned the children as they left my school. Luckily it failed to hit anyone, but there were bullet holes in the fishmonger鈥檚 fence at the top of my road for years afterwards. I was grateful I did not go to school that day.

It was soon after this that the doodle bugs started. I have a vivid memory of playing ball in the road as you could in those days and a doodle bug coming over. Our mothers came running out to get us indoors but the ball had gone between the legs of the horse pulling the dustcart. I can remember clearly being more frightened of the horse than the flying bomb and refusing to go in until someone got the ball.

Some of the simple little memories of a war, I was lucky other children did not fare so well and died in my road.

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