大象传媒

My name is Elsie,I was born in Portsmouth and when the war broke out I was 18 years old. I lived in Portsmouth with my mother, father and younger sister and brother, and my sister and myself worked at the Twilfit factory. Although the war began in September 1939, it was not until nealy ten months later in June 1940, that we began to feel the effects of the war. Until then, the only effect the war had on us really was that there was a lot of activity in the navel docks, we had to put up black out curtains every night as everyone had to, and there was a barrage balloon near us in the grounds of Kingston Church, that would go up if planes were coming over.
Then one evening in June we had just returned from work,and the sirens sounded, and my father, my sister and myself were outside when we saw a plane coming over and as we watched we saw something drop from it, and then heard a lound bang, we had in fact seen one of the first bombs to be dropped on Portsmouth, this was the start of a very frightening time for us. From then on the raids got more frequent until they were virtually continuous.
We carried on our lives as normal as possible, the factory changed our finish time to four,as it was always around then the raids would start, and my sister and myself would only get part of the way home and would have to shelter in the brick built public shelters that were dotted about the place, and when there was a break in the bombing we would make our way home, then when we got home we would have to go into the Anderson shelter that my father had built in the garden, which had beds in it and some drink and snacks to eat, and would spend the night there hoping, that if we did not get hit in the shelter, that when we came out our house would still be standing. We had a Pekinese dog and she would hear the sirens and would run back wards and forwards from the house to the shelter and would not settle until all the family were in the shelter and then would go in there herself when she knew we were all safe.
We tried hard to lead as normal a life as possible, and even reached a point when we thought, if we are going to get hit by a bomb there was not much we could do about it. We would go to the pictures and the raids would start, and the cinema would annouce it to let us go to a shelter if we wanted, and we would laugh because we did not need to be told, we had heard the bombing start, but we would stay and watch the film because we could easlily have been bombed if we moved, as if we stayed put, so we would sit it out, we were very frightened but we just carried on. Then would go home for another night in the shelter.
This went on and the bombing got worse and on the 27th August my mother and father decided that the best thing would be for all of us except my father to evacuate to Wolverhampton for a few weeks until it got a bit better. We were very unhappy and cried a lot because we did not want to leave. When we arrived we had to get jobs because every one had to work, my mother and myself went to Goodyear's Tyre Factory making tyres for the planes and my sister went to the R and A making radio's and amplifier's, my brother was still at school. Those few weeks went on and on and in the end, in January 1941 my father, when the bakery he worked in was hit by a bomb, felt enough was enough, and packed up our home and came to join us. Life went on and during this time we went to stay for a week in London with our Aunt for a holiday and we spent the nights under the stairs and the Buzz bombs had started to be sent over, and you would hear the droning noise and then the noise would stop and you would wait,holding your breath hoping that it would not drop on you but hearing it explode, and knowing it had hit someone, somewhere, it was awful.
On 24th November 1941 our family, along with nearly every family in Portsmouth during the war, lost a member of our family at sea, he was our cousin George, he was a petty officer on the Dunedin which was torpedoed by U-boat 124 in the South Pacific, he was one of 420 that lost their lives and bodies never recovered, only 72 where rescued. This year I attended a service at the Alrewas Rememberance Arboretum, although there were so few survivors, some of the family's have formed the Dunedin Society and have had a memorial erected for them, and I went to the dedication and it was a very moving day for me, as he had been a much loved member of my family and I felt privileged to be the only one to be there of my family who knew and remembered him, he is also named on the memorial in Portsmouth, along with many hundreds more that lost their lives.
Our intention had always been to return to Portsmouth, but those weeks turned to months and the months to years, at Goodyear's I met and married my husband, my sister married and intended to return to Portsmouth, but because there were not any houses they ended up in London and when not long after her husband died, my mother and father went to join her, because she was on her own with a young daughter, and my brother also married and stayed in Wolverhampton.
So instead of a few weeks it changed the course of my whole life, I still love Portsmouth but only get to visit now and then, I mever did go back to live as I had always hoped I would in 1940. Then Portsmouth would never be the same again as so much was flattened, my grandmother stayed throughout the war and survived, it must have been awful for them. It saddens me when I return to see how different it is because so much has had to be rebuilt.
It is strange, because it is not until I think now that I realise just how frightening it had been, but we just got on with our lives and made the best of every day and tried not to think about it.
The war changed the face of Portsmouth forever, it also changed the course of my life completely

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