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When the air raid siren went, the barrage balloons used to go up to prevent enemy planes from flying too low, but Air Force planes used to know of a route through the barrage balloons.
One day as the barrage balloons were going up, a plane came in to land at the airport. My grandmother who we lived with in Chamberlyne Road rushed into the garden to wave to the spitfire pilot (as we were all very patriotic) but following him in were two German planes and as we stood there we saw the gun flashes from a machine gun as they flew. We all rushed back indoors. Recently (2005), I was talking to a friend who recalled the same incident and she was on a bus in Otterbourne that was machine gunned at the same time.

When the siren went you were expected to go to the nearest shelter and the air raid wardens, who wore tin hats, would come out on the streets and call out ‘take cover’ and insisted that you went into the air raid shelters. The shop assistants who worked in the shops in High Street and Market Street had to lock their shops and go to the shelter on the rec, which were on the east side of the path from the High Street to Romsey Road, where the market is today.

My mother insisted that I ran home to our air raid shelter, so I did not go far from the house unless I was with her.

Many of the air raids were at night but at first we had an air raid shelter built of concrete and brick in the road and we went there together with our neighbours when the siren went. This was the origin of what was known as a ‘siren suit’ which was what today is known as a track suit, which you put on, on top of your night clothes as there was often no time to dress. Later we had an ‘Anderson’ shelter built in the garden. The council dug a hole in your garden about three or four foot deep to put the shelter in. To get into it you had to go down three or four steps. We had beds inside so we could sleep in it.
Before we had shelters, my mother and I used to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs. Stairs were the strongest and safest part of our house if the house was bombed or damaged by blast. Many people were rescued from under the stairs or under a table, as there was less chance of something falling on you there.

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