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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Fay Heard of Tollesbury, a People’s War volunteer on behalf of Doreen Rogers (Witherdene) and is added to the site with her permission. She understands the sites terms and conditions.

I was living in Mitcham in Surrey with my parents and brother when the war broke out. I was 11 and from then had little regular schooling. As soon as we got to school the sirens would go and we’d have to run to the shelter. Because we were on the outskirts of London we had a lot of bombing. We had a factory opposite us. We were bombed out twice. We had metal windows in our house and I can remember in one raid that the windows rolled up like a Swiss role.

My father died and my mother remarried. I remember one raid when my mother and brother were in the shelter and I was about to leave the house to join them.. My stepfather was walking down the path towards the shelter when the 2nd bomb dropped. The blast lifted him up into the air and he landed on his feet two doors away — he wasn’t hurt at all!.

We were evacuated to Wilburton. We were taken on the train all wearing labels and taken to the village hall there. Different people came in and chose us. My brother was chosen by someone in the next village. I was allowed to go over at the weekends and have tea with him.

The people who chose me were farmers. There were a lot of airfields in that area. One night a Wellington bomber came down in our cornfield. The place was alight. The men in the village got the airmen out they were badly burnt and were taken to Ely to the Burns Hospital there. It was a terrible fire but they got them all out.

Once the worst of the bombing ended we came home. By then I was 14. I went to work in an office and then got a job in a butchers shop as a cashier. The butcher’s shop had a huge plate glass window. When a bomb dropped I stood in the shop and watched the window — it bowed right in and then went back to its right position. The shop next door was completely destroyed.

I don’t know how my mother managed with food rationing. We did have chickens which helped. We had a lot of suet puddings. One day my mother made a liver casserole — we were all looking forward to it — it was horrible — it tasted fishy and was disgusting. We found out afterwards that it was whale liver.

Clothes rationing meant that we seldom had new clothes. However, we did have some very pretty curtains — tiny check and pale colours and my mother let me have the curtains and I made a lovely blouse.

We had a factory in Mitcham — they made Potter and Moore make up and Mitcham lavender water at one time. But what they were making during the war we didn’t know. The factory was bombed. My step father and I went round the next day. It was deathly quiet — no birds, no dogs or cats, all the buildings were down- it was really weird. It was a terrible time for everyone.

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