大象传媒

These memories are contributed by Rosemary Nicholls and are added to the site with her permission.

One story of my father鈥檚 that I remember 鈥� he was with the ARP and he was also head of school of the Welsh School of Pharmacy and one of his tasks was to stay on the roof of the university and watch out for anything that might happen in Cardiff that he could see from Cathays Park. He didn鈥檛 speak a lot about it but I think it was pretty hair-raising being up there when people were bombing around and aircraft were coming. He also did a lot to manage wounds鈥eople could have limbs blown off and all sorts of things, how to manage these things because being a pharmacist he had a fair medical knowledge. How to stop bleeding 鈥� you know where to put tourniquets to stop people bleeding to death before they got help. And how to put fires, the incendiary bombs out. You know so although he was an educationalist he did an awful lot, like everybody did for the war effort.

One day he had to take a boat around from Cardiff 鈥� he was a navigator, trained 鈥� took a boat around for the D-Day landings. He took several round - all sorts of boats were brought into this. This was all secret鈥nd he had to say where he left it at a previously arranged place with the Admiralty on the Thames鈥nd he鈥檇 have to rendezvous with someone and say I鈥檝e brought the boat in and left it at this place where I鈥檝e arranged to leave it鈥�.and on one occasion, which he used to talk about, he went to the rendezvous and said the boat is in鈥nd they said 鈥渁re you sure?鈥� ..and he said 鈥測es鈥� and they said 鈥淲ell, I have to tell you that your boat has been blown up鈥�. In the time that he took to docking it in the Thames and getting around to wherever the secret Admiralty rendezvous was 鈥� a very short time 鈥� it had been blown up.

I seem to remember a blast and the kitchen door was blown in 鈥� we were unable to get to the shelter鈥e had an Anderson shelter, but we hadn鈥檛 had time to get to it and we were behind the kitchen door, under the kitchen table and I鈥檓 pretty sure I remember it, but I might remember having been told it so many times鈥he door swung back and cracked against the table鈥ut it was just the blast of the bomb dropping on the Cardiff Golf Course which was quite nearby.

We didn鈥檛 have things like sweets or ice creams and if I went to a party I would take six eggs as a present for the child鈥�.rather than a present, we didn鈥檛 have presents to give.

I remember eating acorns鈥e didn鈥檛 have sweets, we didn鈥檛 have all sorts of things鈥�.so we used jam jars and collected acorns. And I remember 鈥� we were town people, city dwellers so we didn鈥檛 have fields around, but we had the odd oak tree and we collected acorns in our mothers jam jars and we used to eat them, probably secretly 鈥� I don鈥檛 suppose our parents realised we were doing it . They were quite nice, I mean they are a listed poison but we ate them by the jamjarful - the odd one would be bitter, and you鈥檇 spit that out and that probably had more poison I would imagine, but we ate them freely. And another thing鈥�.we used to make our own sandwiches from hawthorn leaves, and we鈥檇 put the little berries in the middle. I can remember doing that.

I do vaguely remember VE day鈥�.we had long tables. I think everybody put their tables together, end to end down the street. Because the war did bring community together that鈥檚 one thing it really did do. You can forget that quite quickly, but people were very helpful to each other. They put the tables out and everybody contributed. We didn鈥檛 have much - I can remember we had jam tarts, they often turned up because they could make the pastry and they had made jam from the fruit from their gardens. My mother used to in fact swap her sweet coupons (which is why we never had sweets) for sugar coupons and then she made jam. We dug our garden up to grow fruit we had gooseberries, blackcurrants, strawberries, and she used to make her own jam. So we did quite well in that sense鈥�.although I have to say I don鈥檛 have a sweet tooth. I don鈥檛 like sugar in anything, I think it鈥檚 probably from those days. I never had it and I don鈥檛 really like it now.

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