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This is one of the stories collected on the 25th October 2003 at the CSV's Make a Difference Day held at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Manchester. The story was typed and entered on to the site by a CSV volunteer with kind permission of Vincent Ollier.

Vincent Ollier- Vivid Childhood Memories.

Well my memories are very disjointed as I was born just two months after the war started, the things I remember are just snapshots.
My mother and farther lived in south London, my mother evacuated to my aunt’s farm in Lincolnshire where I was born. My aunt’s farm was in a rather strange place for an evacuee, as it was surrounded by American bomber bases.

I travelled for Lincoln to London to visit my father who was still in London in the ARP, they did all the clearing up after the air raids and looked after the pigs. He was too old to be in the army. What I remember from that was mainly the air raids, it was south London where there was a lot of activity. Myself and my brother would be in bed and the air raid sirens would go off, and so we all bundled out of bed and down into the Morrison shelter, the internal shelter, which was great, this was really exciting stuff. We used to love the air raids we never used to go to sleep, when the all clear went we used to go back upstairs to bed again.

The other things I remember are the ‘buzzer bombs’ the V1s. They had a very characteristic sound, so when you heard one you were out there in the garden looking for it. Occasionally we saw one, often being chased by allied fighters trying to shoot it down, or what they used to do was tip the V1 wing with the planes wing and turn it round. I never saw this happen incidentally, but that was what was supposed to happen.

We did see quite a few V1s and they were quite fun because there was a notion abroad that if you could hear one you were safe. When the engine cut out they’d just cruise down, so if you could hear them they’d just cruise down and hit many miles away and if you couldn’t hear them you didn’t know if they were there or not! My sister saw one in the garden once that had actually cut out and it was coming straight towards her, she could see just the outline of the thing with the little engine on the top, she rushed inside and it landed about two hundred yards away in the next road and blew our French windows out. My sister was ok, she’d got into the room furthest from where it was landing, she was ok but the house was bashed in a bit.

I also remember V2s because one landed also where this V1 landed, they were very scary because you had no warning, they just landed, BANG! So we would lie awake in bed wondering if one was going to land.

The other thing I remember was the anti aircraft guns on the local sports field, the Nat West sports field at the bottom of our road, there were barrage balloons, flood lights, the guns, all great stuff for a child, I remember those vividly.

I can remember travelling on the East Coast main line between Kings cross and Grantham which I loved! The railway journeys were terrific with the steamers pulling the trains.

That’s really my reminiscences in a nutshell.

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