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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jenny Christian of the 2nd Air Division Memorial Library on behalf of Bridget Patrick and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was seven when the war began in September 1939. I can remember that day so well even though it was over sixty years ago. Grown ups didn’t explain things to children in those days, so when the air-raid siren wailed its warning on that first morning of war I was very, very frightened. I rushed outside to the ‘Anderson’ air-raid shelter which had been dug into our garden and slammed my hands over my ears in terror. I would never have gone into that shelter if I hadn’t thought that bombs were about to drop on us. It was a dark, damp hole in the ground, and because there had been no time to fit it out with seats and beds I just sat on the bare earth which I thought would open up and swallow me down. Soon after I knew nothing was going to happen because the ‘All Clear’ sounded. We knew it was ‘All Clear’ because the wailing noise was all on one note, whereas the air-raid warning was a high and then a low whining noise which went on for some minutes. This time the warning had been a practice only and it was to be many months before bombs fell on England.
Later that day I was evacuated. My dad took me from Lowestoft, where we lived, to the middle of Norfolk to stay with my auntie and uncle and two cousins who lived in a village called Aslacton. I felt very unhappy as I was leaving my mum and little sister behind and soon I would have to say goodbye to my dad as well. My sister, who was only three, was thought far too young to leave her mother, but everybody thought that I would be so worried about the preparations for war that I would be better off living in the country. I think now that I would have been far happier staying with my own family.
Although it was a warm September day, I wore a thick coat and heavy shoes which I would need when the weather turned colder. It would have been difficult to pack them in my little cardboard case. Slung across my shoulder was my gas mask which we were supposed to carry with us all the time. These masks were mainly of rubber with a little window made of mica to see through. This looked like glass but did not break. If you spat on the inside of this window it was supposed not to mist up. It was important to practise pulling these gas masks over our heads and faces as quickly as possible so that if the enemy dropped poisonous gas on us we would be protected. They were very uncomfortable to wear, very tight and stuffy and it was difficult to breathe properly. Everybody hated putting them on but fortunately they were not needed because there never were any gas attacks.
We started our journey by bus as we didn’t own a car - not many people did in 1939 - and travelled through the city of Norwich where my gran lived and out into the countryside. There was hardly any traffic, just a few people riding bicycles, and all around were green meadows and brown fields. After what seemed to me a long journey, we got off the bus outside a village shop and I remember my dad buying me a Crunchie bar to cheer me up! Even today, a Crunchie is my favourite chocolate bar.
Very soon a large car drew up. It was driven by my uncle who was to take us the rest of the way to Aslacton. I had been in a car only a few times but never in anything like this one with big squashy, comfy seats.
I snuggled into one and wished I could stay there for ever.
I had never stayed in the country before and as I peered out of the window on that first evening it all seemed very spooky. Because of the war no lights were allowed to shine outside at night. This was important so that enemy aeroplanes would not be able to pick out targets to bomb in brightly lit surroundings.
Everything seemed black and eerie and I could just make out the dark swaying shapes of trees. The only sound was the tu-whit tu-whoo of an owl as it flapped past my window. I felt sad that night and for sometime after, but eventually I did settle down to a new and quite happy life in the country. My auntie and uncle owned the village shop and lived in the house next to it. Behind the house were fields where they kept lots of chickens and ducks that roamed around freely and where I often played with my cousin John. We used the chicken houses in which to play hide and seek even though I didn’t like feathery creatures very much, especially when I got locked inside and had to squeeze out of the little flap which the chickens used! We had lots of adventures and I’m afraid sometimes we were rather naughty.
We loved to play in the big warehouse behind the shop where all the foodstuff was stored. Hardly anything was sold in packets as it is today. Big sacks of flour and sugar were delivered to the warehouse where small amounts were weighed out into strong paper bags and sold in the shop. Biscuits came in tins and sweets in jars and again were weighed into paper bags as they were needed. Of course, we discovered where the sweets were kept and decided to help ourselves even though we knew it was naughty to take things without asking first. Secretly we tasted black liquorice laces dipped in sherbert powder which fizzed in our mouths. We found aniseed balls which changed colour as we sucked them, and big gobstoppers which made us look as if we had swollen faces when we put them into the side of our mouths. Of course we were discovered and punished by being sent straight to bed and not being allowed sweets for up to three whole weeks.
I wasn’t very good at climbing trees - something all country children did in those days. However, one day I came across an old tree with spreading branches and notches where I could place my feet and managed to scramble nearly to the top. The problem was that I had no idea how to get down again. I remember how it seemed that I was sitting in the branches for hours and shouting for someone to come and help me. As it grew dark one of the farm workers came to shut up the chickens and heard me calling. He brought a ladder and somehow managed to help me down, but not before I had scraped my arms and legs and torn my clothes and become very frightened as well.
Soon it was term time and I had to go to the village school which was very different from the one I went to in Lowestoft. The school building was very old and very cold in winter. It was heated by an old fashioned stove called a tortoise stove at one end of the classroom. The other end of the room was freezing. It burnt a very hard kind of fuel called anthracite which gave off fumes. It would never be allowed today. The smell was terrible and sometimes we got headaches and felt very tired. Small bottles of milk were warmed by the stove - everybody seemed to like drinking these, except me; I thought the milk tasted horrible. The reading and writing lessons were quite easy but I couldn’t understand the Maths at all. It was all so different from my first school in Lowestoft. Our teacher read us some very scary adventure stories which gave me bad dreams. I think they were meant for much older people and were not really stories for children at all. The school dentist came in a caravan where he treated our teeth. He wasn’t very kind and shouted at all of us. We are lucky nowadays that dentists know how to look after our teeth in a much better way and are usually very kind and gentle. Teeth were often taken out rather than filled as they are today. There was no fluoride, a chemical which is now put into our water supply to prevent decay in our teeth, and nobody understood then that sweet and sticky foods also make our teeth go bad. In the 1940’s a visit to the dentist was a horrible experience which we all dreaded.
When Christmas came I was very excited. I was chosen to be an angel in the Nativity play which I enjoyed very much, but the best thing was that my mum and dad and little sister came to stay. That made me very happy, especially when I woke up on Christmas morning and found a big teddy bear on my bed as my main present. I was just eight years old and I had never had a proper teddy bear before - it just does not seem possible today.
The war was still going on but there had been no bombing, so after Christmas it was decided that I could go back home to Lowestoft - for the time being anyway. I went back to my old school but I found that I hardly remembered my friends and everything seemed very different. I do remember starting to learn to play hockey. This would never have been possible at the village school in Aslacton.
This was the end of the first part of my evacuation but soon it was all going to change again and turn out to be an exciting and much happier time - for a few months anyway.

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