大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War web site by Sutton Coldfield Library on behalf of Mrs Margaret Cameron and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site terms and conditions.

My father always joked that Hitler sent him a telegram and that is why he was recalled to the Royal Marines in July 1939. He wanted my Mum and myself to go to Plymouth with him as he thought it would be a long war. I was 9 years old and my Dad was a Gunnery Instructor and had a specially built Dome near Devonport Barracks where silhouettes of planes were flashed overhead and the recruits had to shoot them down (unless they were friendly.

We had to live in several different houses - taken in by friends of my cousin. The first one at Peverell, we endured many nights of heavy bombing and one night, we emerged from the shelter to find bits of marble mantelshelves in the garden. Luckily my Dad was on duty that night as he refused to come into the shelter and might have been hit by the debris. Our house had no glass, chimneys were all down and some ceilings down as the result of two houses, two above us in the street being destroyed by an oil bomb. I came home very excited the next day as there were three bodies laid out on the grass at the top of the street covered in tarpaulins and I told my
Mum I had seen a hand poking out.

We had to move to Laira.
My school was bombed which destroyed all the exam results so Mum had to go to the Council to find out I was one of seven pupils to pass for Grammar School and I had to take another exam at the School - much worse than the bombing.

Another vivid memory is the sound of incendiary bombs falling down on the roofs - horrid. I collected loads of shrapnel which my Mum "conveniently" lost when it came time to leave Plymouth and Dad was demobbed yet again and given a nice suit by a grateful Government.

As a child, I found the war very exciting and was lucky not to lose anyone close to me.

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