大象传媒

This story was entered onto the Peoples War website by Rod Sutton on behalf of Joyce Lee, the author, who fully understands and accepts the sites terms and conditions.

I was five years old when war broke out and living twenty miles north of London 鈥� my father was amongst the first to volunteer 鈥� and my memories of the whole war are of happy times 鈥� possibly because my mother was always calm when air raids came 鈥� there were several bad bombing raids near and adjacent to us but we were always in the 鈥淎nderson鈥�. I remember being woken when the siren went and my mother trying to dress me in a 鈥渟iren suit鈥� (all in one trousers, top and hood with a zip front) and as soon as she put my foot in one leg I鈥檇 slide down sound asleep 鈥� our dog would bark at the door the instant the siren went to get down the shelter 鈥� I had a bunk just the length of the shelter and my mother and a lady lodger had deck chairs crossways so that their legs went under my bunk 鈥� when the inevitable happened and I fell out straight onto their laps the canvas on their chairs split and they were flat on their backs unable to get up!!!

There was of course great neighborliness 鈥� which was wonderful 鈥� our next-door neighbours had a Morrison Shelter which was indoors with a metal top 鈥� we had wonderful concerts tap dancing on top of it.

The V.E. celebrations were wonderful with big road parties 鈥� pianos out in the street etc. The only time I felt a bit nervous was towards the end of war when there were several doodlebugs come down around us and great loss of life 鈥� to see them stop in the sky was quite nerve racking and I was about eleven years old and could understand more of the dangers.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.