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This is my personal input bearing in mind that I was born in 1940. (John Plumtree, PW Volunteer story gatherer)

One of my memories of WW2 dates from ‘43 or ‘44. My grandfather — a veteran of both the Boer and 1st World Wars - used to run a Pub in Richmond, Surrey. Early on during the war a building opposite his pub that contained ladies clothing, was hit by a bomb or incendiary and caught fire. I understand that the model figures began to melt and lean at extraordinary angles before the fire was extinguished.
The effect of the bombing in Richmond may have been the cause of my Grandfather moving to another pub - The Castle Inn, High Street, Harrow. In 1944 my mother and I were living in a house 100 yards or so down the hill from Granddad’s Pub. I remember 3 things;
a. walking up the hill one evening to ‘the Pub’ and seeing a fireman(?) trying to put out a fire in a house just round the corner from the pub,
b. the house next door to the pub had been hit but I cannot remember that it was on fire,
c. going home the following morning to discover that the window in my bedroom had been blown in and that there was a very strange ‘burn’ mark on the concrete outside the back door. The garage that had been behind our house had also been hit and burnt to the ground. (There had been a car in the garage and I can remember ‘playing’ in the remains of this car for many months after the war!)
It may have been this incident that caused my Mother to decide that we should go down to North Cornwall where her sister, Phyllis, or ‘Poll’ as I knew her, lived near Crackington Haven. Her husband was in the RN. I have 3 memories of Cornwall. The first was the round tub that was used as a bath, the next is playing on the haystack that was in the field opposite and the last one — I hardly like to admit it! -
® was shouting Heil Hitler as Army lorries passed by on their way to ……?

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