大象传媒

[鈥淭his story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Annika from Cedars Upper School on behalf of Ronald and Maureen Dennis and has been added to the site with their permission. Ronald and Maureen Dennis fully understand the site鈥檚 terms and conditions鈥�.]

We were seven when it started. We can remember the broadcast to say the Country was at war. But we were too young to understand. I was on holiday in a caravan in Skegnets. We had to leave and go home cause of the declaration of War. The following day the camping site was taken over by the army. We had the searchlight at the camp and used to play there, the soldiers used to give us chocolate. We used to have a special of meat pies to supplement our rations. We used to get parcels from Canada, dried milk and coca powder. We used to mix it and eat it, it was delicious!

We used to hear the German planes going over when we were in bed. We knew which planes were German. We had a few air raids but nothing drastic. I stood outside my Grandmother鈥檚 house in Spalding and watched the bombs dropping from the planes. We had an air raid shelter in the School garden, but never used it. We used to practice lying down in the playground, putting our arms underneath us; so that you could still breath (the cleanest air was where it was lowest). We always used to take our gas masks to school, once a week there was a testing to know how to use them. The teachers put a piece of paper underneath our gas mask, if you could still breath they put a new seal in.

One Sunday was a treat day (once a month) we had Sunday sweet with our coupons. Then, we couldn鈥檛 buy half a pound of sweets, approximately one bar. We didn鈥檛 have oranges or bananas, only local fruit. We didn鈥檛 have sweets or cakes but didn鈥檛 go hungry.

Most of they food we had was basic Country food. We had pigs and chickens, the pig being the main thing. One pig was slaughtered and passed around the Village. (Pigs fry). The war passed us by. We were thirteen when it finished. The Schools were near but we didn鈥檛 have writing paper and we needed to share everything with the evacuees. I had two evacuees in my house. There were no street lights, no road signs. All of the sign posts had been taken down. There were no garden railings, they were all taken down and smelted to make ammunition.

Our Fathers were all Home Guards- reserved occupation. It wasn鈥檛 till now or later than 39, adults who were 30 years old realised actually what had happened (close to total disaster). Some of the rationing was still rationed till after the 1950s.

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