大象传媒

I will start at the very beginning. I was just 6 years old and it was the first time I had seen my Mother cry, she had just heard the news on the wireless that WAR had been declared. She went straight to the front door, holding both mine and my sisters hand (my sister being aged 10 years) looking for my Father and hoping he would return home from work very soon. I was very frightened; I thought the Germans would come marching down the street that very day and at that very moment!

From then on everything started happening 鈥� the Anderson Air Raid Shelter was delivered and duly put up by my Father (we grew flowers on the top!) Mum, Dad, my sister and I slept in it every night for 2 years. My brothers aged 11 and 12 years slept in the Morrison Shelter in the house. Rubber ear-plugs were issued so we could sleep through the noise of the guns and bombs.

Black-out curtains had to be made for the house and pulled across the windows every night (which had been criss-crossed with brown sticky paper strips in case of blast and flying glass). Air Raid Wardens patrolled the street every night to make sure you had no light showing. My Father was an Air Raid Warden and helped with the clearing of debris. A bomb was dropped nearby, in fact a whole stick of bombs was dropped one night, one of them a direct hit on the house at the corner of our street completely demolishing it and killing the lady inside, the next one just missed our house and landed on the dump quite close to our back garden 鈥� the huge crater was discovered the next morning 鈥� a narrow escape! Gas masks were issued to every child and parent and I remember the day we had to try them out 鈥� a large lorry was stationed in the school playground full of gas and we each had to take our turn putting on our masks and making our way through the lorry which as I remember was sealed right across the back by a tarpaulin. We all thought it exciting and a lot of giggling was done before we went in but when we came out a lot of coughing when we removed our masks.

We all hoped the Air Raid Warnings would go off after 12 pm as if they did we were allowed to stay at home the next day and no school.

While Air Raid shelters were being built at the school, parents were asked if they would be prepared to have classes held in their houses, providing they had shelters, and as we had both Anderson and Morrison my Father agreed. It seemed so funny to me to see Teachers and children arriving to do their lessons in our house and classes were held in our Front Room and my Mum & Dad鈥檚 Bedroom (had to clear the bed out first).

Life went on and being children everything seemed to be an exciting adventure, not so, for our parents. One day while playing skipping in the street with my friend, the Air Raid Warning went off rather late as a German plane was already flying overhead and very low, my Mother grabbed both our hands and literally threw us down into our shelter and then herself afterwards, falling straight on top of us! Of course we hated the Doodle-Bugs, as never knew where they were going to land after that awful 鈥渄roning sound鈥� had stopped.

Me being the baby of the family I was eventually evacuated. My Mum only agreed to this as I was to go to her sister (my Auntie Annie) who had a farm and lived in the countryside in Essex. I went to the village school; there I played with other evacuees who had also been sent from London to stay with other village families. I missed my Mum so very much and frightened I would never see her again as when the Air Raid Warnings went off and my Auntie, Uncle and myself stood in a dug-out (no shelter) in their garden, we could see the German planes making their way to London and I knew that was where she and the rest of my family were. Needless to say, I didn鈥檛 stay for the whole of the war; my Auntie sent me back as I was so unhappy and crying most of the time. My Mum, Dad, Sister and Brothers were delighted and happily we all survived.

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