大象传媒

This story was submitted to the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by Wymondham Learning Centre on behalf of Olive Pearl Small and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

My name was Olive Wright, now Olive Small, and I was born and bred in Norwich. When the war came I lived in Old Palace Road, which was in that quarter of the city, which took the brunt of the German Bombs in the 1942 raids. I lived there with my parents, two sisters and three brothers in a small semi- detached house about two thirds of the way down the road leading from Dereham Road to Heigham Street. When war broke out my father had just been in hospital having an operation on his toes, an after effect from his experiences in the First World War when he suffered from Trench Feet. This was something, which affected him for the rest of his life. I remember that we were sitting round Father鈥檚 bed when we heard the news that our country was at war with Germany. Father thought that we would all be gassed immediately, so we were very frightened. I was fifteen years old at the time and fourteen years older than my baby sister.

Before long, we were supplied with gas masks and an Anderson Shelter, which was made of corrugated steel and had to be erected in the back garden. Special gas masks were issued for the babies and young people and we were instructed to carry our masks at all times. The shelters had to be half way buried, then topped with soil and turves. There was a small opening at the front. It wasn鈥檛 very big. Some people fitted their shelters with bunks and rugs to make them more comfortable. But our shelter remained basic with one or two mattresses on the floor and a piece of net curtain hanging across the opening. This was slotted onto a piece of coiled wire. I suppose that my mother was trying to create a homely atmosphere. We also had an old chair inside the entrance so that we could step down on to it. When the air raid warning sounded we all rushed down to the shelter, knees trembling. One time I got there first and in the dark was feeling my way in, one leg on the chair, when somebody pushed me from behind. I went in, not quite head first, but the back of my leg from the knee up caught on the metal at the entrance and I was cut, almost like a skin graft. I fancy that I can feel the pain to this day.

Sometimes the warning passed over and there was nothing. At other times there would be a solitary hit and run raider. My cousin Peggy was killed that way. She worked at Boulton and Pauls. She and other girls in the office were trapped and could not be rescued. It was said that screams could be heard but nobody could get near. At her funeral, masses of Norwich people turned out to the cemetery and there was deep sadness in the air. I think it would have been the same for the other girl victims.

On the night in 1942 of the huge air raid on Norwich, I was in the air raid shelter with the rest of my family. It was very uncomfortable, as we had to lie stretched out across the floor, head to one side, feet to the other, with no room to bend our knees, as we were all too tall. But this discomfort faded that night as we heard the planes dive-bombing and saw the reflection of flames through the opening of the shelter, and heard the crackling of burning buildings around us. I felt like an animal caught in the middle of a bonfire. I was shaking uncontrollably, and praying, as I think we all do in times of extreme terror. When the air raid was over, my sister and I walked up Old Palace Road and saw where a pub had taken a direct hit, so we joined in a line of people who were passing pails of water to douse the fire.

Our house was hit and destroyed that night by a land mine that landed on the road outside. There was nothing left of our home except for one wall, standing tall, on which there was a hook and my best dress fluttering like a flag.

My father, with his experiences in the First World War, must have been badly affected. In the quiet he just got up and walked away and we never knew where he went, nor did he ever say, but the rest of the family were very worried.
Eventually we all went down to St. Barnabas Parish Hall, where a team of ladies were giving out food and drinks. We stayed there for about three days. My mother, who had been nearest to the opening of the shelter, suffered bomb blast to her legs, and was unable to walk. She had trouble with her legs for the rest of her life.

The piece of netting at the opening of the shelter was still there, though the coil had gone out of the wire and it was just a jumbled up mass of wire. Although our house was just a heap of bricks, we had a rabbit hutch with rabbits in just outside the boundary of our wall and it and the rabbits were unharmed. Lots of funny and tragic things happened that night, the city was full of stories.

All of our clothing had gone, but some good people gave their unwanted garments and we were given one or two pieces as emergency clothing. My little toddler sister was given two matching dresses and knickers. I remember how pretty they were.

Of course we had to be given accommodation somewhere, but for a while our family was separated. My father and my eldest brother went to stay with my aunt, who lived at Pilling Park Road in the Ketts Hill area. My sister Joyce and I were billeted with a family in Elizabeth Fry Road, where there lived two grown up children and their parents. They were kind, but we were not happy there. My mother and the younger children were sent to a house round the corner. The people she was billeted with did not want her with them through out the day, so she spent her time sitting in the ruins of our old house, and sometimes feeding the rabbits. At night she went back and spent a lot of time in the other people鈥檚 air raid shelter whilst they went somewhere nearby with a friend. Joyce and I used to rush to mother鈥檚 air raid shelter. There was a plum tree hanging over the shelter and it was inhabited by a colony of blind bees. We didn鈥檛 possess a torch, and to sense those bees flying around our heads was unnerving to say the least.

At this time, I was working for a firm named Buntings. They were situated at the corner of St. Stephens, where Marks and Spencer鈥檚 eventually came. It was a big store, the old type with a shop walker and a refined atmosphere. Some people were too bashful to go in. The centre of the shop was open to the top floor where there was a restaurant and a small band of musicians played. Mr Charles, as we called him, was very kind, and when he heard of my plight he ordered the department buyer of the ladies wear to give me two sets of underwear. I was thrilled, and had visions of some lovely delicate fabric, pretty with ribbons etc. but the shop buyer was more practical, and gave me two sets of interlock clothes 鈥� more sensible, but I was disappointed. Incidentally, Buntings themselves were later damaged and had to take premises in London Street, near Goat Lane. There we had to use the cellars for air raid shelters. The entrance to these cellars was outside, on the path. I have since looked for the openings but now there are no signs of them, yet they were massive. I wonder what happened to them.

Bunting鈥檚 old premises were made good and a beautiful NAAFI Club for service men and women was built there. I went several times, and it was lovely.

But to get back to the air raid shelter at Elizabeth Fry Road 鈥� I had been out one evening, on my bike, when the air raid warning sounded and everybody disappeared. It was a brilliant moonlight night, and I was cycling frantically up Earlham Road when an enemy aircraft came over. It followed me up Earlham road. I nearly died of fright, and when I got to the house where my mother was my legs didn鈥檛 stop cycling and somehow I carried on running to the air raid shelter, leaving my bike behind in the road.

We were eventually housed in rooms in a large house at number 1 Cambridge Street. This house had at one time been a nursing home, so the rooms were very big. We only had three rooms, my sister and I slept in one room, the rest of the family slept in another room and we lived in the main room. There was no kitchen, so my parents hung up blankets to separate a piece off for the cooker and washing up. We had to carry water from an outside loo into this 鈥漦itchen鈥�, but we didn鈥檛 grumble because we were all together again.

There was a shelter in the garden. My sister and I used to knit comforts for the troops and one night when the warning sounded we all made a dash for the shelter and father somehow got our knitting tangled around his boots. We had to unravel it later on.

There was a government scheme for compensation for lost goods, but we were all in such turmoil that we didn鈥檛 claim properly and spent a long time afterwards missing things like scissors and other items. All our photographs were lost, as were Sunday School prizes 鈥� mostly books. I have felt the loss of these much more in later life.

All during the war food was rationed to minute quantities, and of course things like bananas and oranges were unobtainable. We used to boil parsnips and mash them with flavouring to use as a substitute for banana sandwiches. My mother used an old trick and toasted a piece of bread until black, then scraped it off, poured on boiling water, put milk in it and called it tea. Then word got round that you could make a sponge cake using castor oil. I made one once. It was foul.

Whilst we were living at Cambridge Street, I joined the ATS (women鈥檚 Auxiliary Territorial Service) and took the King鈥檚 shilling in a ceremony during which I had to swear allegiance. I wish I had kept that shilling, but times were hard and I spent it.

I trained as a wireless and line operator. My training took six months and it took place in the north of Scotland in a lonely spa village named Strathpeffer. The Free Norwegian Force were stationed nearby so we really enjoyed the experience for the time that it lasted before they had to leave for more fighting.

I enjoyed my training time and met some girls who became my best friends. Since then, several have died, but at the moment I spend a regular Sunday morning talking on the phone to my friend of sixty years in her home in Nottingham. We often talk of our time in the army. We lost so much of our youth then, but there were compensations, such as the comradeship, never forgotten, which has lasted to this day.

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