大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jean Brown and has been added to the website on behalf of Ronald Burtenshaw with his permission and he fully understands the site's terms and conditions".

I was born on the 16th August 1940 at Brighton General Hospital. This was a fine time to be born; England was at war with Germany. I made my entry into this world at the height of an air raid, what perfect timing. What with the sound of anti-aircraft fire and me screaming, my mother must have been on the verge of insanity.

The war continued through '41 & '42 and what with the constant bombing raids and indiscriminate strafing from enemy aircraft, my mother was growing ever more concerned about our safety. I think the final straw came when she was out with us children when the air-raid siren was sounded, to alert of yet another daylight raid. My mother had just left the local Post Office in Carlton Hill, having declined the invitation for tea with a person that lived nearby, in Devonshire Place. She ran to her father's house, being the nearest place of shelter, grabbed me from the pram, which was incidentally left in the street, and bundled us children inside. Even though I was only two years old, the fear generated by my mother and the sound of the anti-aircraft guns is still imprinted deep in my memory. Yet, funnily enough, I do not remember an explosion.

After the all-clear siren had sounded, people ventured back into the street, my pram was found, somewhat battered, under a pile of chalk rubble. I would certainly have been seriously injured, if not killed. It was apparent that the enemy had targeted the nearby factory, known locally as the 'Zylo Works'. Under wartime regulations it manufactured instrument parts for our own fighter aircraft. They dropped a stick of bombs and missed, unfortunately landing on some of the surrounding houses. The woman who invited my mother to tea was killed outright. The hand of fate, for if we had all gone for tea, we would certainly have been killed? Had I stayed in my pram then I would have met an equal fate. My mother wanted to escape all this; she was verging on a near nervous breakdown. I am sure it was us children that helped to keep her sane.

In 1943, shortly after this brush with death, we were evacuated to a village called Southwater, nr Horsham, Sussex. Southwater was a wonderful place to grow up in. Woods, fields, streams, country lanes and a little steam railway that passed nearby. In the nearby woods was a POW camp for Italian prisoners. Everything was scarce and rationed, but it was an adventure not to be missed and I made sure not to miss a minute of it.

On one of our trips into the village, mid 1944, we were walking up the lane, known as Bonfire Hill, when an army lorry carrying some Italian ex-PoWs passed us. The war with Germany was still raging in Italy and my father was fighting in that country, my mother still hated the Italians for being allies to the Germans in the first place. As the lorry passed us, she gave a defiant 'V' sign, then all hell broke loose in the lorry, it was all the guards could do to keep the ex-prisoners in the truck. The guard commander ran to my mother to find out what she had done to upset these men. In an ever so innocent manner she explained that she had only given them the victory sign of two inverted fingers. The commander explained that the sign she gave was extremely rude and that she had held her fingers the wrong way round. My mother knew full well what she had done but, with her act of innocence had managed to get away with it.

My sister was a year older than me and had started at the village school. It was on one of these trips from the school that the enemy tried once more to eliminate me from the face of this earth. The enemy had not succeeded in Brighton, trying to blow me up near my Grandfather's house; so he decided to have another go. We were walking home along the Worthing Road when my mother heard the noise of an enemy fighter aircraft firing its' cannons down the road, trying to kill anything that moved. My mother threw us children into a ditch at the side of the road and lay on top of us. We survived the attack, but I was stung unmercifully by stinging nettles, the least of my worries. Another failure by the enemy to eliminate me, which, thankfully, was never repeated.

My father was killed in action, in Italy, on the 23rd September 1944. My mother took us children back to her family in Brighton.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.