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In 1940 I was living in Stone Cross, Ashurst and attending school at Langton Green near Tunbridge Wells. I was still very young and in my first year of school, and I remember sirens going off all the time while I was there.

When the air raid warning went up my older sister (who was in the last year at the same school) would come running to find me and drag me off to the girl’s cloakroom. It was the rule at our school that siblings would stick together during a raid, I guess to keep track of each other in case anything happened. I remember huddling in that cloakroom with some other children many many times, it was small and dark with just one bulb for light and we were always very frightened. It was really claustrophobic in there as well and we had no idea what was going on outside while we were stuck in that little room. We all felt such relief every time the sirens stopped and the moment had passed. We’d all come out and just head back to class, continuing with our day as normal. You had to because this was happening all the time, if we’d all stopped and made a big fuss about it every time this happened we’d have never got anything done! When my sister left the school I just had to huddle under my desk during a raid like most children. I still wonder as I did then how much protection that would offer, I always assumed it would just crush us if anything happened!

Every day a taxi would come and pick us up to take us to school, often while fighters and bombers were circling in the skies above. I remember looking up and wondering if I’d make it home again that day, or even if there’d be a home for me to return to. It was just an uncertain time like that.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by James Barton and has been added to the website on behalf of Rosemary Longley with his/her permission and they fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

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