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I was 5 years old when the war started and I lived on the Kent coast at Ramsgate.

Dunkirk

One of my very first memories of the war was the Battle of Dunkirk when the British army were driven back out of France by the Germans. It was a terrible defeat and all the soldiers had to cross the English Channel to get back to Britain. To do this they had to be rescued by hundreds of small boats, fishing vessels, speed boats, pleasure boats, and even rowing boats. Some, including one of my uncles, swam a long way until they were picked up by a boat.

My grandparents had a hotel and I can remember them loading up my brother’s pushchair and a pram with blankets and bed linen and we all going to the promenade at the top of the cliffs and throwing blankets, pillows and sheets over the railings to the soldiers landing on the beaches so that they could be warm and the wounded ones more comfortable.

Our first Evacuation, (being moved from our home to a safer place)

Because we lived so close to the sea it was considered very dangerous if we were to be invaded and as my grandfather was very severely disabled form the First World War 21 years before, the whole family was asked to move away from the coast. Also a lot of the property was going to be used for soldiers.

We moved to London, which was a very silly move because we stayed in South-east London very near to the Surrey Docks. When the ‘Blitz’ started the docks were the main target and I remember it being a very noisy and frightening time with air-raids every night.

Air Raid Shelters

Our next move was to a place called Brockley just a few miles away. We had a very nice house with a big garden. Where we lived was very high at the top of a hill called Telegraph Park. Our house was in a road between two schools. The one at the front was turned into a Barrage Balloon Station and the one at the back was an Observation Station to spot planes approaching.

At the bottom of the garden under the trees was our Air Raid Shelter (called an Anderson Shelter). This was dug into the ground (about 1 metre) and had a concrete floor and sides and was covered by a curved corrugated iron roof which was then covered with earth. It was not very big (as far as I can remember about 2 metres by 3 metres) and we had a tiny ladder to get down into it.

If there were any air raids we all had to go down to the shelter. My brother and I had a little bed and the grown-ups sat on benches round the sides. Sometimes it was very cold down there and we had hot water bottles. Not the modern rubber ones but stone ones with a cork in the top or glass ones with stoppers. These were filled with hot water and put in a cloth bag. The same water was used over and over again. In the morning they were emptied into a large enamel jug which was left on the kitchen range to reheat. Water was not rationed but had to be used very carefully as a lot was needed to put fires out after air raids.

(We also had to have very quick baths as we had to share the water before it got cold.)

Another shelter (called a Morrison Shelter) was inside the house. This was a cage about the size and height of a large dining table with a very heavy metal top. This was supposed to be for my grandfather because he could not get down into the garden one but he never used it because he could not get into that one either. It was permanently made up into a bed and my brother and I slept in it sometimes.

Schools

Between the ages of 5 and 11 I went to 10 schools. It was not unusual to leave a school one day and not be able to go back the next because it had been bombed during the night. Sometimes they were taken over by the Army or Air Force and used for training. We used to like watching them marching up and down the playgrounds.

Because I went to so many schools I did get a lot of gaps in my education. I could read quite well so had to do a lot at home and my Granddad helped me a great deal.

One of the funniest things is History. I knew a lot about the Tudors and Stuarts because that seemed to be the period they were teaching at every school I went to but practically nothing about what went before or after!

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