大象传媒

We lived on the outskirts of London during the blitz and as an eight year old girl with a younger sister we accepted life as it was in those days. We knew nothing of luxuries and the fact that so few things were available, had little meaning to us - although our elders often spoke longingly of many things that we had no memory of.
Our lives were ruled by the war. We were allowed only to play close to our home in case the siren sounded and when we went to school it was according to the air raids.Sometimes we went just in the mornings, or sometimes, just in the afternoons. Other times we went all day, but invariably the air raid warning sounded and every class with its teacher went to the allocated outdoor shelter where we sat huddled together, listening to stories, or singing, until the 'all clear' sounded.
Because most of the young teachers were serving in the war, we were taught by elderly teachers who had retired and been brought back into the schools to teach up to 50 children in one classroom. The books we had were in very short supply and we usually had to share with other children. Much to my dismay, we were allowed only one sheet of A4 paper for our once every two weeks art class, with nothing more than a few wax crayons. Our exercise books had to be completely filled in by our work - using every bit of paper - including the margins - to save wasting paper.
We went to school with our gas masks every day, and were in big trouble if they were forgotten. After school, we picked up shrapnel off the roads that had been left from the air raids the night before. We had a full assembly one morning when a boy from our class died after kicking a piece of metal around a field that turned out to be an unexploded shell.
We accepted all these things as a part of life, knowing it was because of the war. Coping with the lack of sleep and the exhaustion of trying to get through the next day was a different matter for everyone.Adults and children alike..
We slept in the Anderson shelter which stood in the ground at the end of our garden.Our parents had done their best to make it comfortable and as dry as possible, but the cold wet weather made it a losing battle, and the dampness clung to everything inside, making the air full of the sickening smell of mildew. We constantly longed for a good nights sleep in our own beds in the house and in desperation at times, when their seemed to be a lull in the air raids, our parents thought we could take the risk of not going to the shelter.We waited for a really bad night when there was no moon and the skies were pitch black and covered with heavy clouds. The air raids always seemed to be less when the weather was bad. We climbed into our comfy warm beds and were soon fast asleep. It seemed minutes later we were being woken up by the wail of the air raid siren with our parents pulling at our covers and shouting for us to get out of bed. As quickly as possible we put on our shoes and coats and were rushed downstairs and out of the back door into the freezing cold night air. Rain pelted down as our parents half dragged us up the long garden path, our feet squelching, slipping and sliding in the mud with just a glimmer of light from the slit in the torch that dad held and frantically waved about as he yelled out to us to 'follow him' and 'mind his rose bushes'.
As we struggled along the path searchlights streaked across the night sky, seeking out the enemy aircraft that flew overhead. Hand in hand we reached the shelter, throwing ourselves one by one through the small doorway and down onto the soggy mattress that laid below. Guns 'boomed' and 'ack acked' as we huddled in soaking wet clothes all through the night, my sister wheezing with asthma as condensation ran down the corrugated metal walls onto the bedding where we lay. There we stayed waiting for the drone of the aircraft, the explosion of falling bombs and the noise of the gunfire to end before eventually the 'all clear' sounded and when daylight came, until the next time, we left the shelter, to find our home - still intact!

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