大象传媒

My name is Ted. I was born in October 1936 in Strood, Rochester, Kent.
I was one of four children at that time.

I was 4 years old when the war started. I can remember other children being evacuated, but my mum said we would stay with her as she thought it would be safer for us. The schools were closed so it was up to mum to teach us to read.

The air-raids were mainly at night. I can remember the planes coming over and the guns firing all around us. We were close to the Chatham Royal Dockyard, so bombing was intense. The station was just across the road. We were bombed on 2nd March 1944. We were under the stairs at the time. We climbed through our windows to the house of the woman next door and then went into their shelter. That night my younger sister was born. The ARP wardens came round and we had to go round to the rest centre. They fitted us out with clothes and gave us a meal.

From there we went to stay with various relatives until my father was given leave. We then went to another relative in Herne Bay, Kent for about 3 months. That was when we went to school every day.

One bomb destroyed 28 houses in one street. Around the same amount of people were killed. That night, 4 bombs were dropped; an ammunition train was going through the tunnel at the time. Just after that the doodle bugs started coming over. Once the flames stopped coming out of the back of the doodle bug we knew it was coming down. We had an air raid shelter which became flooded in the winter due to the tide water table, so we used the one next door.

We kept chickens and rabbits, so we were luckier than most food-wise, and we had fresh eggs and meat.

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