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I was born in 1931 and remember different things about the war. We lived in Hillingdon

Once I was with some other girls and we were walking home but going the wrong way, on a different route which I shouldn’t have been on. My mum would have been wondering where I was and then when we were on West Avenue we all saw a soldier in a jeep and he was exposing himself to us . he was also trying to get us to get into the vehicle with him. We took his number and when he saw us writing it down he drove off. I was about 12 or 13 and we went to tell the police before we went home and said we’d seen this man, what he’d been doing and his Army number. Then I went home but I didn’t tell my mum what had happened and pretended we’d found a bomb and that’s why we’d been to the police. Our neighbour knew the truth and was saying you’ve got to tell your mum which I did in the end. Anyway they caught this man from his number and asked us girls to go to the army camp and walk up and down a line of men there. They said if you see the man who exposed himself to you then point at him. He went to Uxbridge court and pleaded not guilty but I think they got him because the mileage on his jeep was all wrong and didn’t match up with the places he said he’d been to. I remember it was in the paper — 3 alert girls send a soldier to prison and it came out that he’d tried it before and tried to take young girls off with him. This was all because I walked the wrong way home.

I also remember we had a shelter and going into it at night and my four brothers used to fight over the best place in the shelter. I remember the doodle bugs outside which you could hear humming and then suddenly they’d stop and my mother would be shouting to come inside. I remember going to school during the war and walking about 2 miles there and coming back for dinner and going back again. My brothers were always finding bits and pieces which used to make my mother very cross.

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