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Grandmama’s Memories of World War 2
Written for Libby aged 91/2

I lived in Chiswick, a suburb of London, and I was about a year older than you are now when the war started.

On September 1st 1939, two days before war was declared, all the children had to report to their schools where they boarded buses and were taken to main line railway stations to be ‘evacuated’, which meant we were being sent out of the capital for safety. All we were allowed to take was a small case that we could carry, a favourite doll or teddy, and our gas masks, which had been issued a few weeks earlier to be used in the event of a poison gas attack.
My younger sister and I were lucky, because our mother came with us as an escort, but lots of children and parents were crying as we waved goodbye.
We had labels tied on us with our names and a group code ABC A6, and our mother wore an armband with this on.

Our destination was secret until we were almost there, when the headmistress visited each carriage to tell us that we were going to Dorchester.

There were lots of hold ups on the journey and it was dark when we arrived, and taken to a school, given a meal and then taken in groups to the roads where people had volunteered to have evacuees. My sister and I went to a Mr and Mrs Collins. He was the headmaster of the local boys grammar school and she was a part-time teacher. They had an 8 year old son who was in bed when we arrived and he had quite a shock in the morning when he saw two girls at breakfast as they had been expecting a boys school, but the boys, my brother among them, had gone on to Weymouth. My mother stayed in a boarding house for a short time and then returned home.

We were happy with our new family, but unfortunately Mrs Collins became very ill and went into hospital at the end of November so we were moved. The only people available to take us were a Mr and Mrs Harris, he was 78 and she was 72, and they didn’t have much idea of how to care for children. We were neglected and often hungry.

Our school were using a local hall for our classes and the village green nearby was used as a playing field, and we had school dinners at the local school after they had had theirs, so during the week in term time we did get one reasonable meal a day.

When our parents visited us in August they were so upset by our appearance, that they made arrangements for us to return home.

Although we’d had a few air-raids alerts in Dorchester very little damage was done, and when we first returned to London things were fairly quiet, but it wasn’t long before air-raids took place every night and frequently during the day.
When we were at school we were sent to the basement when the siren (the warning that an air-raid was about to start) went and continued our lessons there.
At home we had an Anderson air-raid shelter at the bottom of our garden. A very large hole was dug and a small room made of corrugated iron fitted half in and the top half, with a very small opening, which could be covered with a corrugated iron sheet, stood above ground, then it was covered with the soil dug out of the hole and vegetables were grown on top. We had bunks beds made to fit and slept there each night.

Every one had to help in the war effort, and my father, who was too old for the forces, became a fire-watcher and had to take his turn at night on top of the highest roof nearby, to watch for fires and send for a fire engine. My sister who was 10 years older than me had to work in an aircraft factory where she made parts for aeroplanes. It was secret work and she wasn’t allowed to talk about it, or tell anyone where the factory was. My mother looked after children whose mothers worked in factories during the day, so we always had lots of people in our house.

One morning after a very noisy night we came out of our shelter to find our house and several others in the road had been bombed, and all our possessions were lying in the rubble. We salvaged what we could, my mother said ‘look for photographs’ and we found the big family bible, badly damaged, and the armband and label my mother wore for the evacuation and a number of other things — a few toys, but most were very broken. We had to go to an aunt and uncle’s house until the council found a suitable house for us and gave us furniture, bedding and clothing.

As children, one of our greatest hobbies was collecting shrapnel — metal pieces from the bombs that were dropped, it was quite a competition to see who could find the biggest piece!
You were not allowed to show any lights at night, all windows and doors had to be covered, this was called the ‘black out’ and was so that bombers passing overhead couldn’t see there was a town below. Air raid wardens used to patrol the streets and you often heard the cry ‘Put that light out’ if someone had forgotten to close their curtains.
Church bells were silenced and only allowed to be rung to warn the people if there was an invasion.
Food, clothes and most other things were rationed so that people got fair shares of what was available. Everyone had a book with coupons and points which you had to use when you bought your food etc. so that the shop-keepers would know you were entitled to it. Gardens were given over to keeping chickens and growing vegetables, and parks, open ground and bomb sites, after the were cleared, had allotments that people could rent to grow vegetables. We didn’t see things like oranges, bananas and pineapples for years as they came from abroad and the ships wouldn’t have been safe bringing things that we could do without.

It sounds really dreadful, but people were very cheerful, there was singing in the public air raid shelters and on the platforms of the underground railways where people went to sleep after the trains stopped running. People helped each other and great care was taken of the children.

I joined the Girl Guides and we used to go collecting newspaper and scraps on a trek cart to be recycled. When I was 13 I learned first aid and how to put a fire out using a stirrup pump. Fortunately I was never called upon to do so!

A land mine was dropped in Chiswick and wiped out about 10 streets. My aunt was buried in the rubble and couldn’t be found. Three days later, my uncle, who was as air raid warden, went to have one last look and heard a very weak voice calling his name. He went to assemble a team to dig her out — they wouldn’t believe him, said he was imagining it, but he persuaded them to dig and they got her out. She had a badly damaged leg and lots of other injuries but after a long spell in hospital made a good recovery.

Then we had the ‘doodle bugs,’ or buzz bombs, as some people used to call them. These were missiles that travelled a certain distance before the engine cut out and then they would fall. With the V.1’s you could hear a buzzing sound and you would hope it would pass over you. If you heard the engine stop you would count and the higher you counted it was said to be further away from you. The V.2’s were different — I don’t think you could hear them approaching.

On May 7th 1945 the war in Europe ended. This was called V.E day and there were big celebrations throughout the land. I went with a large group of my friends to Buckingham Palace to see the King and Queen waving from the balcony. We went to the London parks where bon-fires were lit, lights blazed everywhere — church bells rang, everyone was singing and dancing. Most people got separated from their friends and I ended up with a boy I didn’t know very well and we had to walk home as no trains or buses were running, because of the masses of people and the drivers wanted to join in the fun.

Although the war with Japan continued until August 15th 1945, it didn’t affect us in the same way as Japan was so far off. We celebrated V.J. day in much the same way.

The restrictions of the war, such as rationing etc. continued for some years but gradually things improved. On the whole people were healthy during the war as foods such as dairy produce and sugar were in short supply and these products are now thought to be harmful if you have large amounts.

By Freda Stott
January 2005 age 76

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