大象传媒

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As our house was rather small and because of the ages of my sister and I, we were not allocated any evacuees or soldiers other than my father. However, one evening, shortly after the air raids started in the summer of 1940, there was a knock on our door. Friends of my family with whom we stayed when on holiday in Ramsgate, stood there with only a single suitcase between them. Their home in Ramsgate had been made un-inhabitable by enemy action and they had been instructed to leave that area. Having nowhere else to go, they came to Dunstable where they had lived in the 1920s, hoping that we would put them up for a few days. The husband became ill and in the end, it was nearly a year before they were able to find a home of their own.

Our immediate neighbour had two spare bedrooms and had two soldiers billeted with them. I remember them telling me how they were going to end the war by going to Berlin, asking to see Mr Hitler and shooting him when he came to the door. Nonsense of course, but as a 6 鈥� 7 year old, I was thoroughly enthralled.

Next door but one also had some spare rooms; they had two Polish evacuees named Bernhard and Walther. These boys both spoke German fluently and taught us a few words, in particular I remember the phrase 鈥渉ar kish nitten鈥� which was the best that our English ears could make of the German word 鈥淗aargeschnitten鈥� meaning haircut. Walther would put his finger across his upper lip, give the Nazi salute and speak rapidly in German pretending to be Hitler. His brother told us his imitation was very good.

Our neighbours married daughter that lived in Victoria Street had two evacuee children who were to eventually stay on in Dunstable after the war when their parents came to live here.

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