大象传媒

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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Pam O'Brien from Chichester Library on behalf of Valerie Farmer with her permission and they fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

At the beginning of the war my family were living in the RAF estate at the top of Thorney Road. I was four years old at the beginning of the war. During bombing raids my mother used to lay us all together in the hall. She thought it would be better if we all went together if a bomb hit. One night she heard a bomb coming, the noise stopped and she thought, 鈥淭his is us finished鈥�. But it passed over us and fell in Portsmouth.
One evening my Dad was outside talking to a neighbour, and there must have been planes fighting overhead, as a piece of a plane dropped next to him, almost hitting him. I think that he picked it up later. One day he had two of us out in a pram at Emsworth Harbour, when a raid started. He had to run all the way home with us.
We used to see a lot of dead swans in the harbour because debris and bullets had hit them.
My mother had to hurry back from Portsmouth one day, where she鈥檇 gone to see a film with someone. I still have some ration books. I remember once going shopping for my Mum, and a friend asked me to get a jelly that her Mum had sent her for. Of course, I鈥檇 forgotten that it would be ticked off our rations! I really caught it for that. Mum couldn鈥檛 always afford to buy the sweets that we were allowed on the ration, so she sold the coupons to the butcher over the road. I don鈥檛 know if she got some extra meat or not.
We used to have an air raid shelter in next door鈥檚 garden. I spent lots of nights down there. We had to jump over a low fence, and I鈥檓 told that I lost lots of shoes down there.
The three older children, including myself, were evacuated to my grandfather鈥檚 house in Worksop, Nottingham. We spent a few years there. Mum couldn鈥檛 get to see us much during that time. She didn鈥檛 feel she could come with us, as she might not have a house to come back to. We were very happy with our grandparents and our four aunties.

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