大象传媒

I was born in Plymouth Devon on ist September1939 so I was just 8 years old, absolutely bemused by this news, that we were at war, like everyone else, terrified of the unknown in a childlike way.

There was a lot of talk about the German's coming and also that they would probably bomb us. As some sort of protection we were all issued with the Anderson Air Raid shelter. My Father and Brother Bill decided to put this at the bottom of our garden, they dug out this large pit, about 3 to 4 ft deep, they erected this weird looking object, we as children were quite excited about this. Dad then covered the floor with planks of wood and covered this with lino.
About halfway up the sides of the shelter were angle irons, Dad fixed a plank along each side and Mum made two mattresses to fit, the four elder children slept on these, two each side, Mum, Dad,and I slept on a mattress on the floor, I can remember it was very damp, really we were like rars in a hole.
At the back of the shelter was an orange box which Mum kept stocked with food, such as tea, sugar, tinned milk, and any tinned or packaged food she could get, plus what seems funny now, a first aid box, which on reflection would have been useless had a bomb hit us.
Outside in the garden, Dad built a three sided place to hold a fire, on top of this he put a grid, and Mum used to cook potatoes and veg on this, then he put a bisciut tin on the fire, Mum even cooked a roast dinner on it, when she could get the meat.
this then became our home for the next few months, at first to us as children, it was an adventure, but all this soon changed when the heavy bombing started, we were so scared, clinging to each other praying for the morning to come.
When we did come up out of the shelter, very often we were met with the sight of the City of Plymouth burning, although a beautifull sight in one way, our world was crumbling around us.
We would get ready for school, not knowing at that stage if we had a school to go to, on our way, one of the main pastimes was to collect pieces of shrapnel from the night before.
At the bottom of our garden was a railway line, on the other side of this, a house was hit by a bomb, and our house had all the windows blown out, it also killed our canary-Joey
On the 7th May 1941 a land mine dropped in the cemetery, about a quarter of a mile away, a kerbstone from one of the graves came through our roof, through the downstairs ceiling and opened up a cellar we did not know we had, although we had lived there since 1930.
After going through most of the worst of the heavy bombing, My Sister Iris and I were dressed in our best cloths with our gas masks around our necks and labels on our coats and were evacuated to Truro in Cornwall, to us it seemed a million miles away. I look back on this now and realise what a responsibility was put on Iris, she was only four years older than me, but it was up to her to keep us both together, and look after me. We were taken to a small village called Threemilestone, we sat in the village hall with all the other children, but because we were Sisters and could not be parted, no one was willing to take us on.we were feeling very lonely and afraid, but then a couple called George and Myrtle Bartle arrived and agreed to take us in.
Their home was a small cottage in a field, one large room downstairs and two bedrooms, from there we could see the searchlights and fires over Plymouth.
By day we walked to the next village called Greenbottom to school, held in a chapel hall, there were no real teachers, just anyone willing to help out. We went on a lot of nature walks I remember, I suppose that kept all of us out of bother.
After school we used to play in the field at the cottage, and feed the goats with sycamore leaves. On the edge of the field was a bank with some trees, we had a rope swing from one of the trees, this gave us great fun, until I fell off into the field, which was full of stinging nettles, I was covered in stings and very unhappy.
When the school summer holidays arrived, we went to Rashleigh High School in Truro where George Bartle was a school caretaker, one of his duties was fire watching.
We slept in the boarding boys dormitories, rows and rows of two tiered iron beds with curtains around them, this again was quite a frightening experience for two young girls on their own in this huge room, with it being holiday time at the school, we as a family were the only ones in this very big place.
After about a week there, we were all taken ill with food poisoning, Mum and Dad were very worried about this and decided we should come home.
The bombing was still going on, but was now more incendary bombs than high explosives, these were dropped in baskets called Molotov baskets, one of which fell in our street, one of the bombs went through the roof of a house across the street and ended up on the bed of a man called My Symons, who was dying with TB. Dad and Bill dealt with it quite quickly but Mr Symons died a few days later.
All this time we had no gas, electric or water, a cart used to come around every day delivering water.
Then we started getting parcels from America with the original tins of spam, tins of corned beef hash and tins of bacon, the bacon was laid on fat covered greasproof paper, the bacon was a real treat, and tasted delicious, also the fat very good for cooking, and of course be now there was the famous powdered egg. This was absolutely fabulous ,
Iris and I used to lie in our bed at night and listen tp the Sunderland Flying boats A TAKING OFF FROM pLYMOUTH SOUND, THEY WERE AT THE FLYING BOAT STATION AT mOUNT bATTEN AND WERE TAKING OFF FOR RAIDS ON SOME, TO US, UNKNOWN FOREIGN TOWNS. wE USED TO COUMT THEM GOING OUT AND LISTEN FOR THEM COMING BACK, THIS WAY WE KNEW HOW MANY PLANES HAD BEEN LOST THAT NIGHT, SOMETIMES WE WOULD HEAR THE ODD PLANE LIMPING BACK HOME HOURS LATER.
iN THE FEW WEEKS LEADING UP TO D DAY WE COULD HEAR THE TRAINS RUMBLING ALONG THE RAILWAY LINE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GARDEN, IF THEY WERE CARRYING TANKS AND HEAVY VEHICLES, THEY HAD A HARD JOB CLIMBING UP THE INCLINE, IF IT WAS TROOPS IT MADE THE CLIMB MUch easier. On V E day WE HAD A STREET PARTY, IRIS AND i WERE BOTH DRESSED UP IN OUR sUNDAY BEST DRESSES, AND WE STOOD IN NEXT DOORS GARDEN GATEWAY AND SANG A SONG CALLED "My Sister and I" very self consciously. we then played games and had a good tea, we never did know where all the goodies came from, but it certainly was a good treat.
When I think back to those dark and dreadful days, all the bombing, people dying, some getting terribly injured, the struggle to feed us children, our Mothers and Fathers must have had a terrible time, the worry must have been incredible, it is a miracle that they survived as they survived as they did, not knowing if we were going to live to see another day.
I only have to hear a siren now and it takes me right back to that terrible time, it still makes my blood run cold, something I will never forget.
I hope and pray that our childrens children and the ones that follow on, never have to go through those harrowing times, but to help us through was the wonderful spirit that was throughout the country, you would often hear the people singing to keep their spirits up all the good old songs like " Quartermaster's store" "Run Rabbit run" "the White cliffs of Dover" and of course the inevitable "There'll always be an England" how patriotic we were.
Another thing that happened not to me, but me eldest Sister Elsie, she was at the pictures, with her then boyfriend, later to become her Husband when the stopped the cowboy film that was being shown, and advised them all to go to an air raid shelter as there was a lot of bombing going on.They came out and ranpast the Royal, only to find that part of that had been bombed and they were stepping over dead bodies and injured people. The Police and helpers were moving them on. They ran to Portland street where there was a large communal shelter, but found that this was full, they ran further on to another shelter, where they stayed until the air raid was over, it was only then that they found out, the first one that they had tried to get in had received a direct hit and all the people were killed.
The thoughts, sights, sounds and smells of the war never leave you, they are there forever, but we were the lucky ones, some poor souls were maimed for life, others didn't make it at all. We were able to move on, rebuild our lives, our Cities and the Country as a whole, but is it really any better, we now live in a very sick world, and I fear the Great has been taken out of Great Britain.

God help us all!!

A very big thank you to all those wonderful people who fought in whatever way to bring peace to the world.

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