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Radios were absolutely forbidden but of course many people had crystal sets, which were a special little gadget. I don’t know exactly how it picked up the signal but the crystal through a cat’s whisker somehow gave a sound through earphones. People could hear the British news. I suppose the difficult thing was to hide the earphones, but the crystal set could be easily hidden and there are many stories of different hiding places. But a big worry for me was that during the holidays I often used to go to an aunt and uncle who lived at Bordeaux. My Uncle Lewis and Auntie Deena used to let me stay with them and I used to be able to go up and play up in the attic with my cousin’s toys. My cousin had been evacuated with Elizabeth College so I’d go up and play with his toys. One day I went up and of course I saw the crystal set and a pair of earphones. This terrified me, because I didn’t want to let anybody know that I’d actually seen, and I was absolutely frightened that I might give the game away, and if my uncle had been found out he might have suspected me of letting the cat out of the bag. He always used to say he knew somebody who had told him the latest news, he’d never let on that it was him. In fact it wasn’t until after the war that they said to me ‘You didn’t know we had that, did you?’, and I’m afraid I lied and said ‘No’, and it was a few, little while later, when I felt safer I think, that I admitted that I had known. But I was very frightened that I would be responsible for the deportation of my aunt and uncle if that had been discovered.
BRIAN LE CONTE

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