大象传媒

Before the '39 - '45 war I had few really striking memories. Having been brought up in a strongly religious family, I was deeply affected by hearing, and being unable to accept that a bishop, somewhere up north, had blessed the massive guns of a battleship. This was when I was four or five. Another major picture was the great bulk of the R101 going (a few hundred feet)above the hills I lived in N.London, a few hours before it crashed into a hill in France.

But his account is mainly to give some idea of the experiences of a boy 14 - 15 in 1939 when my birthday on the 6th of September, co-incided closely to the beginning of the war. It had been obvious for some time that war was probable, all the fuss about Mr. Chamberlain coming back from his meeting with Hitler seemed to convince many people that the danger had receded. The appearance of Anderson shelters and sandbags competed with the 'phoney war stories' that later on would succeed the initial panic of the air-raid sirens when they sounded over our schoolrooms on the first day of war - when we all thought that the bombs might be falling any minute. Then there was the upsetting dishing out of Gasmasks and labels to stick on our clothes as we were evacuated. My feeling we more of an adventure than anything else - they were exciting times. However, arrival at the flatness of Wisbech on the river Nene soon dampened that.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.