大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War Site by Joan Smith for Three Counties Action on behalf of Richard Wickens, a visitor to the Glenn Miller Festival on August 28th 2005, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

This is a story about my father and me. Dad was a Naafi manager at Blandford in Dorset and we lived in a bungalow near the camp. One day a German reconnaissance plane was chased away from overhead by two Spitfires, causing general panic in our family. My aunt picked up my small sister to take her into the shelter in the garden, while at the same time my mother picked up my brother in the garden to take him into the house - and they all got stuck in the doorway. I was in the lounge and Dad threw me onto the settee and fell on top of me. This was early in the war when we weren't used to such things. The German plane was shot down, and we all ran out to see. My father jumped onto a fire-engine to get a better view. One of the Germans was shot in the bottom and we all thought this was hilarious.

At around the same time my brother and I, aged about four and five were watching some troops marching. We decided to salute, but we weren't sure which hand to use, so we used both. The sergeant gave the order : 'Eyes right!', and we stood there and took the salute. The lines of troops seemed to go on for ever.

Because my father worked in the Naafi we were lucky because occasionally he would got chocolate. Sometimes at home he would ask for cake or something sweet, and my mother would tell him there wasn't any. He would say: 'We've got stacks of that in the Naafi' and this became a family catchphrase.

Later in the war we went to live in Southampton, near Southampton Common. During a particularly bad air-raid eight bombs were dropped on our street. We used to go down into the cellar for shelter, and every time we heard a bang my mother would tell us that that was another German plane being shot down, and so we counted the bangs and weren't frightened. The following day my uncle came to take us to Bournemouth where we would be safer. There we overlooked Hurne airport, and I can remember seeing a plane crash as a streak of flame through the sky and then an explosion behind the trees.

Once my father brought home two incendiary bombs that he had found - this to a house full of kids! My mother was more sensible and asked an ARP warden to take them away.
I remember the events leading up to the invasion, with the roads full of troops and the skies filled with planes and gliders. I also remember the end of the war - it was the first time I ever saw anybody drunk.

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