大象传媒

This contribution to People鈥檚 War was received by the Action Desk at 大象传媒 Radio Norfolk and submitted to the website with the permission and on behalf of Mrs. Joyce Mc Rickus
Our VE Day Street party took place when I was 14, we had wired up a gramophone on a chair, records appeared from many different families, but there weren鈥檛 many from my family because like many other children at the time I had put our records into bowls of boiling water to try and then shape them into vases. It was just a fashion we went through, but of course they didn鈥檛 hold water because of the hole in the centre.
During the War my Sister and I slept under the stairs, this was considered to be the safest place in a house until the Government built brick shelters in nearly every street. If the siren went during the day which they often did, mothers used to bring their vegetables in a bowl and continue preparing them for dinner.
At one time living with our Aunt after being 鈥渂ombed out鈥� from our home, we had the experience of sleeping overnight in an Andersen Shelter in her back garden; they talk today of passive smoking. My Mother and Father smoked, so did my Aunt and Grandfather although my Grandmother didn鈥檛. In the bunk beds, myself on the top and my Sister underneath I used to watch the thick blue smoke floating around the tiny electric light bulb that hung in the centre of the shelter. We slept every night like that for months and months, I don鈥檛 remember any ventilation in there at all.
When the all clear went after all night bombing, we used to pick up pieces of shrapnel and then have a competition when we got to school to see who鈥檇 found the largest piece. Large semi underground shelters had taken over our playing field at school, gas mask drill was twice a week, the smell of the rubber was awful and although it was strictly against the rules we used to insert our fingers in the side just to let some fresh air in.
This is only a blink of my many memories, others are written down for my family to keep. Even to this day though and I am now 75, when I hear an aeroplane going over it still seems a threat in my mind. I want to add this, children then had far more respect for each other, girls and boys at 14 were at work, working in munitions factories, so they were given far more responsibility. Their fathers were mostly in the forces, so whatever job needed doing in the home they took the place of their dad. These young people had status they were put in a position when they had to be strong, no time for wandering around the roads looking for trouble; if you put a lot of the youngsters in their position today with all the technology there is now, they could never compete with the young boys who coped so well during the war. I hope this will give you a little more insight of a memory.

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