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Sunday 3rd September 1939
I was 15 and a half years old and living in Bridge Road, Epsom. I had just listened, with my family, to the radio announcement that Great Britain and France had declared war on Germany; the BEF, we were told, had begun to leave for France; newspapers had been full of warnings, over the previous weeks, about what was to come. The shock of the announcement affected us all; my Father had served in the First World War and had been badly gassed and he still suffered from the effects.
I went into the front garden not knowing what to make of it - what did it mean to me? I could not envisage that the iron front garden gate I was leaning on and the garden railings, would eventually, be confiscated by the Government for the war effort to build tanks.
I had no vision then of the drama that would unfold, the despair, sadness, grief, romance, love, and- hope; the Cockney and Londoners' kindness and sense of humour, and what the American impact would be when they joined in the war and yet, amongst the above, the laughter and patriotism and what my future teenage years would be like.
Before war was declared I was going to start a college course to train as comptometer operator (a comptometer was a machine which works out decimals) but sadly, with the warning of war, the college decided it would be safer to move out of London up to the North and I was notified that, as they had moved, I should take an office job until the war was over. I took their advice and joined a local firm, where all the men were very busy filling sacks with sand which had been specially delivered to protect the shop and offices in case of bombing.
At the beginning of the war, the hut in Alexandra Park, Epsom was going to be set up as in ARP post. I offered to man the hut, which only had a telephone and whistle, on my own until it was all organized, which I did for a month or so, but I was made redundant when they discovered I was officially too young to do the duties.
The winter of 1939 /1940 was very cold and there was a fear of not only food, but also clothing shortages and this was the time when ration books were first issued. This is also the time when we were asked to use blackouts; we had to cover all our windows with heavy black cloth at night so no chink of electric light would show to the outside world.
1940
In May 1940 a new law came into force stating that all sign posts had to be removed and church bells would only be rung to warn the population, of invasion. The mental hospitals in Epsom had been evacuated of patients and had been prepared for wartime casualties, D-Day and the evacuation from Dunkirk. At this time I was asked if I would take chocolate and sweets given, at a local bakers shop, by customers, as a donation to the many wounded service men. This I was happy to do although I found it a long way to walk from Bridge Road, so I cycled up to the hospitals as, in those days, there was little traffic. I did this twice a week and was made very welcome.
My Mother booked a holiday, for four, my parents a friend and myself and, in August 1940 we went on a cabin cruiser up the Thames from Kingston to Windsor. This, I thought would be quite safe. However, after two or three days, on a beautiful summer's evening, we were moored by the river bank and sitting on deck admiring the beautiful countryside and watching the sun go down, when, to our dismay, we heard church bells ringing in the far distance. We all thought our country had been invaded. It was dusk, so we could not manoeuvre the boat and there were no houses or other boats in sight. So we stayed where we were, by the riverbank overnight, and at sunrise sailed on up the river to the next village, only to find that no one had heard the bells. This may, of course, have been due to the direction of the wind, but we never found out why they were rung or by whom, even after an extensive search, but we had spent a very fearful and restless night.

The many bulletins from Churchill, which we listened to on the radio gave everyone tremendous hope all through the dark days and we all took heart from his words. When the Battle of Britain took place we could see the fighters in the sky over Croydon, from an upstairs bedroom window. We were all kneeling on a small bed and there were so many of us that the bed collapsed!
1941
I caught a bus each day from Epsom to Surbiton, passing through Tolworth, where I was told a bomb had been dropped and gone off. It had hit the railings opposite the Odeon Cinema and had caused a tremendous amount of damage to the shops near by. So I decided to leave my job in Surbiton where I had worked for two years and to work in Epsom, where I was offered a position to replace a young man who had been called up.
This was written in 1941, within a week of the event.
‘Wednesday night Epsom was bombed, the other side of the town to us 4 houses were knocked down, three people killed. Thursday night at 8p.m. some bombs were dropped about 440yds away from us, one or two houses down, several people killed. At 11-10 p.m. two bombs dropped very near, as we were nearly all asleep under the stairs, I heard it coming down and thought it would land on us, but we heard a terrific explosion with the noise, debris or a house falling down, and glass falling about, people yelling as well, father and Mr. Jordan ran out in their dressing-gowns, (Mr. Jordan in his stocking feet.) to see what had happened, I wanted to go as well but mother wouldn’t let me as the Jerry planes were over head. When they returned they told us about it-: Father said he went running up the road over earth and stones, nearly tripping over the telephone wires to get to the house as someone was calling for help, then he went round the back of the house to find the crater, found it, (he had a warden with him) the warden shone his torch down it, both thought it very deep, but could not tell how much, father then returned home - Mr. Jordan went out after father, he had a rough journey up there in his stocking feet, he arrived up there after father, he took the old lady of the house from the warden and passed her on to a second warden, as she was badly shaken. The old gentleman came out of the house with his silk top hat on, he had been in bed when it fell. Mr. Jordan then returned home. Next morning-: I got up early to see the damage, we had about five holes in our roof only small ones though, I was allowed to see the crater, it was about 16ft-20ft deep, the house was still standing and it had done about £100 damage, but out of the 25 houses in Bridge Road 7 of them are without any bomb damage. The Road had been filled with earth and stones, also a few telephone wires about. We had the road closed and men to scrape it clean. (Oh, on top of the house was an apple tree.) We had earth on our loft window sill, and chunks of it in front and back garden. The house is opposite side to us, number 2, the crater is about 30yds away from us. The funny part about it was that out ceiling fell down at 9 a.m. the next morning after the raid, that gave us more of a shock than the bomb did, the ceiling fell down on the top landing. There was a good few more bombs dropped in Epsom that night, that also did a lot of damage.
Saturday I was going out shopping for myself, as I had got half way down the road I heard a plane coming over and naturally I turned to look at it, and to my astonishment it was a Jerry, it was very low, down below the rain clouds that were very low, we had no gunfire until after it had dropped 5 bombs (father saw these five bombs leave the plane) then I think they brought it down. It was a Dornier as I looked it up in our book at home, found it by the long pencil shape body.’

I do not know the date of this bombing, there is no date on the note, but I was on Epsom station waiting to catch a train going up to London, and there was no one on the platform apart from me and I heard a German plane coming over (I could distinguish the difference between a British and German plane by this time) and, as it was overhead it dropped a bomb which landed on the road running down
below the platform. A little boy ran out to look at it, and I shouted for him to stop, as I did it burst into flames, and he just stopped there whilst the plane went on to drop further bombs near the mental hospitals; there were tremendous explosions, but there was a great deal of land around the hospitals and I never heard that they had actually been hit so I suppose the bombs fell on the waste land. I was very pleased that the bomb did not land on the station as I, and the little boy would not have survived.
Another time I went to visit a friend in Kingston, when German bombers decided to bomb the Kingston Barracks which were in the next street to where my friend lived. When one heard a bomb coming down you dived for `the shelter', my friends dived under the stairs but I didn't have time to ask where the shelter was, so I dived under the table which was next to me, only to find it had one centre leg which my head met up with and I knocked myself out; after the bombing my friends couldn't find me.
December 1941 Great Britain and The United States of America declared war on Japan.
A close friend of mine, who was between 18-19 years old, served in the RAF as a bomber pilot; his last letter to me was only half a page, as he was called away to a briefing, then on to his flight, and he never returned. His colleague sent me the unfinished letter, it was so sad, as he was an only son and he was never found, but his name is on the war memorial at Runnymede. We listened to the so called Lord Haw Haw on the radio who would sometimes tell you if pilots had landed in Germany, survived and been taken prisoner.
1942
This year was a very amazing year for me. On a lovely summers day I was walking up London's famous Regent Street when two American Army Officers were walking towards me looking very smart in their coloured uniforms of chocolate brown jackets and fawn trousers, one was carrying a beautiful long stemmed rose. As they came up to me smiling they stopped and said ‘We have been looking for the most beautiful girl in London and at last have found her - you - we would like to present you with this rose’. I was quite overcome with emotion and thanked them very much, walking on in a dream. I often wished I had said a few more words and hoped that they have survived the war.
Epsom October 1942
I became engaged, and it was a very dramatic time because my future husband had been called up and had decided to go back into the navy, the Merchant Navy. He would return to the shipping company he first sailed with. Within a couple of weeks he was involved in the Battle of the Atlantic, sailing in convoys backwards and forwards across the Atlantic to the States, then sometimes down the dangerous Atlantic Seaboard to the Caribbean Sea and on to Mexico or Venezuela. Many, ships were lost every day and listening to the radio my Mother would tell me, daily, more and more ships had been bombed or torpedoed. Lights of the big cities on shore made the ships a silhouette and easy targets for German submarines. Ships like the San Demetrio and Ohio, both of which were lost, and in the fleet for which my fiance worked and on which he lost friends. It was a sad farewell when his ship sailed from the UK, but so wonderful on his safe return to port. My Fiance and I had our own authentic code, which enabled us to send each other important messages; we had to have this code approved by the Government, which it was and it ensured that we could communicate, if necessary,while he was at sea.
Londoners
Having just got engaged, my fiance, who was now a Chief Engineer, in the Merchant Navy, came home on four days leave, and while he was home he took me to the theatre in London to see ‘My Fair Lady’ show. After the late show, about 10pm, we made our way down to the underground and on arriving on the platform we found it packed with families preparing for bed. When I say packed, we, my fiance and I, had only 3 ft to walk along on the edge of the platform beside the rail track. It was all so busy, with children asleep on mattresses and dozens of people preparing to go to bed and others eating their meals. I could not see any bit of platform between them or how they could walk through without stepping on someone, but as my fiance, who was in uniform, walked in front of me men were stopping him and saying 'the best of luck sir', ‘thank you sir for what you are doing' and wishing him the best. It did not seem possible that these men with their families, who had left bombed out homes on the London Streets above and the continuing bombing, recognized my Fiance's uniform and gave him their heart felt thanks. I felt extremely honoured to hear these comments from these Londoners.
London cockneys
I went up to London to go shopping one day and outside Waterloo station. There were some market stalls; one stall was selling bananas and I went up and asked the cockney stallholder if I could buy some bananas and he said ‘have you got a green ration book lady', I said ‘no', the man on the stall next to him called out with a big grin on his face,' I'll flog you a bottle of green dye for a `Bob' to dye it'. He was just kidding me, and there was lots of laughter in the air but I didn't get my bananas.

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