大象传媒

I stayed in Southampton during the entire duration of the Second World War with my parents and two brothers. We became used to regular air raids and would have to go down to the shelter in our garden, on the way down it would be like watching a massive firework display, there would be search lights, bullets shooting up at planes, spit fires chasing each other, British fighters would be trying to shoot down planes before they could drop their bombs, it was a surreal experience. There were lots of barrage balloons put up in Southampton to put the enemy air craft off because they had to dodge out the way of them and this would put them off track, sometimes they would hit the cables and that would be the end of them. My father worked at the Southampton Echo during the war because he was invalided from World War One, the Echo鈥檚 head office was bombed so it was replaced with a make shift place, I can remember all of the high street being completely flattened by the bombs. Life continued as normal as much as it could and I continued to go to school, the school had a shelter in the playground. Many of the soldiers going to the front line would ship out of Southampton Docks and I can remember the roads being filled up with tanks, me and my brothers would make ourselves some money by fetching the soldiers water and food. There were lots of Yanks in Southampton on their way over to the front line and they brought lots of stuff over with them such as cigarettes, chewing gum and chocolate, they would often give stuff away to us. Our rations meant we were used to eating basic food so it was good when we got sweets and chocolate from the Yanks.

'This story was submitted to the People's war site by Laura Leahy of the County Heritage Team on behalf of Harold Winsor and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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