大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from CSV/大象传媒 London on behalf of Anne Bates and has been added to the site with her permission. Anne Bates fully understands the terms and conditions."

I started school in 1943. The primary school was what had been the Cricket Pavillion before the war. I lived 1/4 mile from the park. One night a bomb hit the school and destroyed it.

there used to be lots of people going to the cemetary. There was a bomb there, killing all the people visiting the cemetry. It was horrrendous.

There was a brush factory nearby which was hit by a bomb one night. I could see flames 1 mile from the house, but was very disappointed as I could see the flames, but wasn't allowed to go and see them, although her brother was!

One very scary experience was when I was quite young, around 3. I came to London with my Mum to go shopping. We were on the underground and the train and it stopped at a station. The whole platform was full of children of all ages to be evacuated. i remember my mother holding my hand tightly saying "Don't get out, don't get out". I was very frightened, as I could't imagine why so many hundreds of children would be there. There were people on the platform keeping the children away from the train.

I remember the noise of V2 bombs. I knew it wasn't an air raid as there were no planes to be heard. I could hear the whilstle of the V2 bomb. We used to watch them going over the house. We knew that whilst we could hear the whilste, we were safe. Later you would hear an explosion and know that it had landed.

I slept in a Morrision shelter, along with a we had lodger who was a teahcre teacher and my mother.

I remember on VJ day the people on our street had a party. All the girls got a small broach in cake box, both of which i still have. The writing on the box reads 'VJ Day 1945'.

I also faintly remember sending 'aerograms' to my father.

We used to go on the train in the school holidays to Wolverhampton. My brother and I used to spend the time walking up and down the train, as soldiers always had chocolate! As two small small children we always used to get some! My brother used to tell me "don't tell Mum!".

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