大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Dunstable At War Team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I can remember the milkman coming into my parent鈥檚 house and listening to Mr Chamberlain on the radio telling us that we were at war.

I was 7 years old and living in Dunstable. I had three brothers, John who was in the army, Colin 17 and David 9. We had evacuees, Frederick and Joseph, and 2 sisters, Maud and Kitty. Later, Kitty was billeted to number 9 Victoria Street. They stayed with us for about 18 months before moving to Pointers Road so that they could all be together. Later, Charlie came from London before moving to Surrey to join his father who was a policeman, because the bombing wasn鈥檛 so rife there.

We went to Burr Street School but I think our evacuees went to Britain Street. We only used to attend school in the mornings or afternoons because of the influx of evacuees from Ackland School in London. We had air raid practices and had to go into the cloakroom. Every day we took our gas masks to school in a cardboard box with our names on it. They were horrible things and we had to practice wearing them for so many minutes a day.

There seemed to be a lot of comings and goings at our house at Victoria Street. Mum鈥檚 friends were already with us from Kent when the evacuees came, and stayed for 4 or 5 years because they were being bombed. My parents got us out of bed one night because they thought the bombing was a bit close. We sat on the stairs at Victoria Street, Dad at the top, Mum at the bottom and the children in the middle.

We used to go down the Tring road to Wellhead and catch tadpoles. We used to go up on Dunstable Downs. Mum was friendly with the police sergeant who lived in the police house at the top of Icknield Street, and the two families had a tent up on the Downs before someone told us to take it down.

The gliding club was totally out of bounds and surrounded in barbed wire because the Italian POWs were being held there. The POWs worked at the cement works or at the lower railway station in High Street North.

After the evacuees we had soldiers billeted with us, as our house was quite big. One of them, George, was in the ROAC and stationed at the brewery (now the Priory pub in High Street North). Another one worked at the Garth, which is now the dental practice and some were in the Catering Corps.

My eldest brother was already in the Territorial鈥檚 before he joined the Beds and Herts Regiment. He was called up but the company that he worked for, Gryson Young said they had more important work for him to do because he was an engineer. The army released him after about 11 months to do this war work.

Colin joined the Royal Navy and was on the landing craft at the D Day landings. That was just before he was 21. We didn鈥檛 know until we received a card from him telling us that he was well. He came home for embarkation leave and then he went on a course in Scotland. I think he went backwards and forwards to France quite a lot on his landing craft. He used to tell us that on D-Day, 18 landing craft went out and only 4 came back; he was on one of the four. He made a joke of it but said he was shaking for days afterwards.

Father was in the ARP. I think he was in charge and wore a white tin hat. He went round to see if anyone had a light shining. We made blackout curtains and I remember putting them up every night. When father went out on his rounds, he sometimes had to say, 鈥淗alt. Who goes there?鈥�

People all looked out for each other and morale was good. My parents used to listen to the radio news and we used to sing along to all the war songs. Mum did very well, she made marrow jam and suet puddings. There was a big surge to get tinned fruit when one of the shops had them. Mum used to make some of my clothes, or we were given hand-me-downs. I don鈥檛 think we went ragged but things were a bit, make do and mend.

At Northfields School one sports day, my friend鈥檚 father came walking down the road. He had come home from the war and she hadn鈥檛 seen him for 4 or 5 years, so that was a bit of excitement.

On VJ day, I鈥檇 never seen anything like it. People brought pianos out for street parties, everyone was in a good mood and there were crowds everywhere. At the town hall there was a wonderful band called the Embassy Band who played on the balcony. Everyone in the street cheered.

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