大象传媒

This is an ordinary story of how civilians contributed to the war effort.
We lived at Aylestone and my father, the local chemist, was Civil Defence Group Warden for the area; headquaters were in the cellar of our house. For some time the public had been encouraged to claim their gas-masks, without much success, but following Neville Chamberlain's broadcast on Sept 3, there was a queue outside. The daylight raid on Cavendish Rd. was the most serious incident to be dealt with; rumours filtered through to my office in Leicester that a raid at Aylestone had hit the Chemist's shop, but it turned out to be another pharmacy. It was a baptism of fire for all the civil defence volunteers in the group and there were considerate casualties amongst residents we knew.
My sister and I worked as secretaries in Leicester and also enrolled in Civil Defence. We were trained to deal with incendiary bombs with stirrup pumps and two nights every week slept on camp beds at Central Control a mile away, on call as telephonists in emergencies. We would walk home at 6.00am to freshen up, have breakfast then set off for a normal day's work.
We relied very much on the 大象传媒 (the wireless!!) for our contact with national news and entertainment.
We belonged to the local Youth Club; many of our members (boys and girls) joined the armed forces and I edited a monthly letter with local news for those away from home. Our depleted numbers put on small variety shows, for nearby army units and the convalescent-home for the wounded at Market Bosworth.
After Pearl Harbour when U.S. Forces arrived here, some were invited into our home and our parents corresponded with their families in America. On D-Day the skies around filled with Dakota aircraft as the U.S. airborne division flew to land in France.
Over the years we kept busy, but life was humdrum and we were constantly anxious for family and friends. My Fiance served with the Royal Navy from 1940 to 1945, on board a cruiser in the Middle East and Far East for three years and then with Heel-Air Arm on N.Atlantic convoys; he joined one of the Merchant- Aircraft Carriers - an oil tanker specially fitted with a flat deck to take swordfish aircraft to combat submarines. (Although acknowledged at the time as hazardous operations, they are rarely mentioned in war reports.) By V.E. Day he had transferred to a Royal Navy Station in N.Ireland, where eleven German U-Boats (submarines) arrived to surrender.

'This story was submitted to the People's War site by Sara-Jane Higginbottom of the CSV Action Desk Leicester on behalf of Joyce Iliffe and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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