大象传媒

I was 7 years old when WW2 started,I lived in Kentish Town,NW London.I distinctly remember the build up to September 3rd 1939, with blackout practice and being given a smelly old gas mask and a identity card.
When Neville Chamberlain was about to make his speech on that Sunday morning my mum called the neighbours in to listen because some of them didn,t have a wireless set. We had a Relay Radio which was very useful because they would announce when there was going to be a air raid in the London area and my mum and dad would alert the neighbours.
All my family stayed in London for the first part of the war. Then the blitz came and we spent all our nights in the air raid shelter. we would learn all the latest songs and then sing them in the shelter to drown out the noise of the bombing.
Our school was closed and a teacher came to the house to try and keep us up with our lessons but that didn't last long .After the blitz the school reopened and it was decided that my sister Grace and I would be evacuated with the rest of the chilren who were going from our school which was Rhyl St. School,Kentish Town
When the day came for us to go it was very frightening because we had never been away before and had no idea where we would end up. We were herded on to a bus which took us to St.Pancras station and then on to a train with hundreds of other children. The journey seemed endless and it was dark when we arrived at our destination.Because of the blackout there were no lights and we had stopped in a railway siding which meant there was no platform and we had to jump down from the train, that was scary especially for the smaller children.
We got another bus that took us to the village hall and we were given buns and lemonade. It was very noisy because they were trying to arrange for us to be billeted with the local people and lots of children were crying for their mums and dads me included.
It wasn't easy to understand the local people because of their accent and I asked my sister "are we still in England" it turned out we were in New Tredegar Sth. Wales.
Eventually we were taken to live with a Mr & Mrs Jones their house was on the side of a mountain but we couldn't see much when we arrived there because it was dark.
We were woken up the first morning to the sound of coal trucks clanging together and looking out of the window we found it was coming from a nearby coalmine.
It was all very different from home
but I think we thought of it more as a adventure and Mr & Mrs Jones were very kind to us. They had no children of their own so we got lots of treats and we would go winberry picking on the mountain, then help Mrs Jones to make pies with them.
I got to love the mountains and the sheep roaming around, we had a lamb stray into the back garden and we adopted it but was sad when it got too big and had to let it go back to the flock.
After a year or so I was taken ill and mum and dad had to come and take me home, my sister fretted and dad had go and get her too.
It was very frightening being back in London it was back to the shelter at night so sleep didn't come easy after the quiet of Wales.
My dad was on 'Heavy Rescue'which meant he was on call day and night
helping to rescue people bombed out of thier homes. He got badly injured himself and when he was able to work again he was an ARP warden. We didn't get to see too much of dad because he was always needed somewhere to help out but my mum was always there for us and she also kept a good eye on the neighbours.
We weathered the war moving from place to place because of the bomb blast which often made houses unfit to live in but we never actually got bombed out.
By 1944 things got really bad again
the Doodle Bugs arrived (pilotless aircraft) and then the V2 rockets
which were even worse because there was no warning with them.
Mum and dad thought we should be evacuated again so off we went with the rest of our school to Flitwick in Bedfordshire where we stayed until just before the end of the war which came 1 day after my 13th birthday.

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