大象传媒

Can you tell me your name please? Yes, Kathrine Elizabeth Comben. And your single name? Richardson. What year were you born in? I was born in 1915. And where did you live? Rose Walk 鈥� I was born there. You were born in Newhaven? Newhaven, Yes.

Can you tell me what you remember about the war? My husband was in the 210 Field Company Territorial Army so consequently he was called up the moment that war was declared. So he went off the Bridport, and then he went overseas and I came back here and stayed in Seaford because I lived in Seaford then, and then stayed there for a long time. But he came back from Dunkirk and I went up north with him and was there a couple of years; and then he went overseas to Egypt, and so I came back here, and stayed here for the rest of the time.

Can you remember anything the happened in Newhaven? Well, when that bomb went off under the cliffs, I was here then. I lived in Rose Walk then. The ceiling came down all over the baby鈥檚 cot, and the wall in the hall lifted up and down, and there鈥檚 a great crack along there afterwards. The roof had to be re-done because it had lifted up the roof, all the soot! I never saw so much soot! There were soldiers in the street, and they came round 鈥� 鈥淎re you all right?鈥� 鈥� and got blankets and things. Glass was everywhere. I had a wooden bed-head and there were splinters of glass all along the bed. Luckily my children were tiny, two and a three, and they were down in bed otherwise they would have got those splinters all over them. Yes, they were all sticking out the back of the bed. Well I still stayed there after that. I was there thirty-odd years.

Were you in Newhaven when the mine dropped in Folly Fields? I wasn鈥檛 here then, my parents were. I鈥檇 moved up north when that happened. They lived in the old telephone exchange and it got near enough the full blast of it because it came behind the Co-op field. And then they moved up to Rose Walk, and when I came back, I moved up to Rose Walk as well.

Any flying-bomb incidents you remember? Oh yes! That scared us stiff that night that they come over because we didn鈥檛 know what they were. We could hear them, and then because you had your radio on, they told us what it was. I can remember standing at the front door of Rose Walk and looking over Mount Pleasant and I saw some drop there, which was awful, then sort of went silent and dropped which was a horrible thing really because you didn鈥檛 know quite where it was going to drop.

Air-raid warnings? Oh yes! Because there was always one at one o鈥檆lock just as you were going to have your dinner, so you had to go in the Morrison shelter with your dinner. Oh I can well remember one night I stayed there with the three children and couldn鈥檛 get the wire undone in the morning. Oh that was awful. I had to sit quiet with the children. They were crying to go out, and sort of compose myself and then undo it again because it was quite a good job to come off of some nuts at the top.

Were you around at the time of the Dieppe Raid? Oh yes. And what do you recall from that? You could hear a lot of noise in the night. You didn鈥檛 know until you got your radio on. We relied on the radio. All the street was full up with Canadian soldiers. There was a lot of houses empty up and down Rose Walk, and they were full up with Canadian soldiers. They used to make a fuss of the children because a lot of them had got their own children.

Anything about rationing, cooking鈥�? Yes, we dug up our lawn and grew peas and things like that so that we could get enough. You could get potatoes but we couldn鈥檛 get peas and beans and that sort of thing. We had a marrow bed, there was only my mother and I but we managed to do that sort of thing.

Can you remember the fish that we used to buy? That was terrible. It was dried fish called Sook. It was so dry you used to have to soak it for about 24 hours.
It smelt terrible, but it was all right once you鈥檇 started to eat it. And also we used to buy whale sausages. I wouldn鈥檛 eat them but the children loved them. But I suppose they had to find something for you to eat.

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