大象传媒

This story has been contributed to the People's War by the 大象传媒 Learning Centre, Gloucester, on behalf of Derek Arthur Ayland with his permission.

I was seven years of age when the 39-45 war started. My brother Ken was 18 months younger than me and my sister Rosealie was a baby.

My father lived at home with my mother until he received his call-up papers and went into the RAF and served in France. That meant that my mother and brother and sister and me had to fend for ourselves. My mother found it very difficult to manage with hardly any income.

As the war went on we had classes at school on what to do if there was an air raid. If the sirens went we all had to leave the school and go to a building 100 yards away in this place they kept emergency rations of food and other things such as beds. The sirens went one day and we all had to go to this shelter. We thought it was great fun.

We were hiding under the beds when I discovered some tinned milk which a friend and I decided to open. Someone decided to tell a teacher and the police were called! I was told off and given three strokes of the cane. My hand swelled up so I told my mother about it and she gave me another hiding.

Coming home at night from school was very scary. We had to take cover from what we called dogfights between Spitfires and German planes. We hid in shop doorways. It was quite a long walk from Quedgeley School to where we lived on what was once the old Cole Avenue roundabout.

It was not long before we were given gas masks and ration books so we could get food and clothing with the coupons. When the war had been on for a couple of years we started to hear the bombers passing over our house.

It was very frightening to hear the drone from the heavily-laden planes full of bombs on their way to the big cities. It was not long before the local Home Guard advised my mother that we should sleep under the stairs at night so we did just that. It was not very comfy I can tell you!

We lived in a lodge with a mansion at the top of the drive which belonged to a local builders' merchants called Sessions and Sons in Southgate Street, Gloucester.

As the war went on the Army commandeered this big house to house German and Italian prisoners of war. It was quite scary. We thought if they escaped they would kill us. It was not long before the British Army put a sentry on guard at our house which made us feel safer.

As time went on the American convoys started to pass our house and they were very generous to us. They would give us chocolate and chewing gum and coffee and biscuits and nylon stockings for Mum.

The prisoners of war were soon to start work on farms around the county. One day when they came back from work we witnessed a fight over a loaf of bread and knives were used. The PoWs were quite a big thing with the local girls. They used to come outside our houses and stare at the prisoners who were allowed to stand by the guard on the gates.

As the war went on the Army were concerned for our safety so they built what they called a pillbox, three feet thick and made of concrete, in the field next to our house so we slept there for the duration of the war. There was a bit more room and it was a lot safer.

As the war dragged on my mother decided to make some money so she started a B&B business and did very well. One night a couple that were cyclists stayed with us. That night we had the first bomb dropped about 100 yards from our house. It did quite a lot of damage to our house.

My baby sister was in her cot asleep when all the windows were blown out and all the glass fell on her but she escaped without a scratch. The couple who were staying the night came down to inspect their cycles to find a piece of shrapnel from the bomb had severed the handlebars on one of the bikes.

In the morning the whole village came out to see what had gone on. They were also collecting shrapnel as souvenirs. We were very lucky to survive. The theory was that the plane was going home and had just one bomb left so he dropped it almost on top of our family. Thank God he missed.

My parents both survived the war but Dad'd brother lost an arm in the RAF. He was starting a plane and the propeller chopped his arm off. Ugh!

One of the last things I remember was that the Army wanted to put a large 'ack-ack' gun in my bedroom that overlooked the Gloucester Canal. But they decided not to in the end. As the canal was only across from our house we could hear boats firing their guns. I think they called them 'pom-poms' because of the strange noise they made.

Our house and Quedgeley Court were demolished and Cole Avenue went in its place.

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