大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from 大象传媒 Radio Berkshire on behalf of Neville Smale and has been added to the site with his permission. Neville Smale fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Towards the end of the war I was 7 years old at school at Basingstoke Church of England School. At school the best part at the time was bunking off lessons to go into the air raid shelters. At that age we didn鈥檛 know what was going on. My mother (Florence Smale) used to work at Park Prewitt Hospital where they used to treat all the injured. It became too much for her, the horrific injuries she saw so she left. After that she went to work in Thorny croft where they went to make munitions. She stayed until the end of the war. My father Leonard Raymond Parris died on 22nd May 1940. He was 22, I was just 19 months old. I don鈥檛 remember him at all.

At the time you didn鈥檛 realise how serious things were. You heard planes flying overhead, we used to run outside and look. My mother used to get so upset as we didn鈥檛 realise. I couldn鈥檛 tell which planes were German or British.

When I used to live in Woodville Lane Chineham, we had no electric, no hot water and a bath on a Friday night once a week. We were still happy.

I鈥檝e got two brothers, Dennis and Archie. Archie was 7 years younger, Dennis is just one year younger. We were still happy because we weren鈥檛 old enough to understand.

The flying bombs used to be called doodle bugs. They made such a noise, when the engine cut out you knew it was going to land. In Basingstoke the Germans were trying to bomb the station as it was the mainline between Southampton and London. Also Thornycrofts the munitions factory was here too. All I know is the bombs dropped on church square in Basingstoke and a few people were killed. When the planes came over we as school kids didn鈥檛 realise what was what.

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