大象传媒

Beryl Chambers was 16 when the war started. She lived at home with her family in Wembley, near London. She had 3 siblings, the youngest of which was 10. Beryl recalls things like rationing very well. Her mother was always very inventive and made the most of what they had. Her family did not own their own shelter and instead used to bring their beds downstairs during the bombing between 1940-1941.
Her father was too old to join the forces, but was very interested in all that was going on. Her family kept up with what was going on by listening to the radio a lot.
Beryl spent lots of time knitting socks and scarfs and for the forces and felt a strong feeling of everyone working together.
When beryl was finishing her school days and took her final exams she did so in a big school air raid shelter!
Beryl then wanted to attend collage. Her collage was evacuated to Dudley in the countryside. Beryl enjoyed her days here very much. She remembers putting on tea and coffee mornings for soldiers on leave.
Beryl fortunately never lost anyone during the war and remembers it on the whole as quite a happy and pleasant time of everyone working and pulling together.
Her uncle was the lord mayor of London and through him she was able to meet the queen mother. She recalls Churchill鈥檚 speeches as motivating and keeping everyone going.
Beryl holds her good experiences of life during the war such as joining a fire fighting club and the excitement of being involved but she does have some bad experiences such as seeing a solider so badly scared she started to cry. Like most other children, Beryl missed out on things like holidays and being allowed out until late, but all children just had to accept the set backs fighting a war had on daily life.

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