大象传媒

I was one of the lucky ones compared to others during the War. I lived in Ipswich, and my husband didn't have to fight and take part in the war: he worked as an engineer.

In those days, food was rationed. We had eggs, sugar, butter, bacon etc. and some weeks we were able to have four eggs to share between our family made up of four. By having rationing, it made us become a lot healthier although we were not able to eat a lot. Very often, I would work very long hours to help provide food for our family. The first time that my children manage to taste a banana was when they were four years of age and they also got to taste ice-cream when they were six years old. To get just a tin of jam, I would walk and push the kids in the pram from Felixstowe Road to town. I had to give up the times when I cycled and hiked about.

Situated in Ipswich, a bomb landed very close to where I was living at Felixstowe Road near the docks. It landed in Holywells Park which is where I normally passed to get to work, so considering that, I was extremely lucky to have not been there. Now whenever I hear the sirens on the television, it brings back the memories, all flooding back. It makes me feel very upset. Unfortunately, a few of my friends passed away which was very sad.

What was very scary for me was when the sirens went off. My husband at the time was working at nights, and it was down to me to carry the children when they were asleep to the air raid shelter without waking them up (it was very hard not to). Our air raid shelter was placed in our back garden and I would often get help from our neighbour to help carry them. I knew that when the sirens went off, meant that there would be planes ahead, and Doodlebugs about, so as long as you heard the noise go past or above you, you would know that you were safe.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.