大象传媒

Mr. Law has given his permission for his memories to be recorded on the 大象传媒 People's War website.

I was born in 1936 and was a small child when the war began.
My family was evacuated to Dumfries, which is a lovely part of the world. My father bought a house there so that we could move away from the London area to somewhere safer. They chose Dumfries because I had an uncle and aunt living there, although at that time my uncle was in India serving in the War. I went to school at Dumfries Academy which was a very good school. They would give you the strap if you misbehaved, but we learned!
I lived with my Mother and sister, and my brother until he went to war. I was the youngest of the family. My father was working in the South building aerodromes.
Towards the end of the war we returned to East Sheen just in time for the Doodlebugs attacks! I did see two of them flying, and saw one of them cut out. One landed about 200 yards away on Sheen Common. This blew in all the windows of the front of the house and the garage door and blew my Mother across the bedroom. I was sleeping at the back of the house and didn't hear a thing!
The next day I went across Sheen Common like all little boys, picking up pieces of shrapnel, which were extremely sharp.
I also remember watching these huge formations of our planes flying out on bombing missions. In the morning, we used to watch them coming back in and recall that sadly there were gaps in the formations where bombers were missing.
These are the abiding memories I have of my childhood in the war.

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