大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jenny of the Stoke CSV Action Desk on behalf of Robert Kimberley and has been added to the site with his permssion. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was born in Leatherhead in 1932 and lived there until 1950. My dad was in the army in the first war, driving a Holt Caterpillar tractor which towed a gun capable of sending a shell nine miles. That was in Mesopotamia.
In 1939 my mother, sister and I went to Worthing in Sussex for a late summer holiday;we were there when war was declared. Dad was working, training people to use basic engineering tools in a Training Centre at Waddon on the edge of Croydon Airport, so he sent his sister to collect us from the south coast in is car. It was a two litre Speed Model Lagonda which was very big and very fast. Quite an experience for my aunt.
As soon as it was formed, dad joined the Local Defence Volunteers, which soon became the Home Guard. He trained some motorcyclists to ride across rough country in case they needed to do so in an emergency. Later he joined the army again, this time the REME as a military vehicle inspector.
I was at Downsend Preparatory School and my sister was at St Andrew's Convent School. Our house had four bedrooms with a garage built in. We had an Anderson shelter in the garden some 50 feet from the house. We soon had two evacuees from East London with us, but they did not stay very long. Later we had two Canadian soldiers for a while.
During the blitz my sister and I went into the Anderson shelter at about 6pm to stay all night. Mother joined us and dad came too. Dad always went back to the house to hear the nine o'clock News. One night at just 9pm a German bomber flew over Leatherhead and dropped his load of five bombs before trying to escape from our fighters and guns. His third bomb went into our back lawn and exploded under the garage. Dad realised that it was going to be close so he stood in the hallway where five doors added strength to the building. He saw or heard many of our possessions crashing and breaking. He waited until the dust settled. When the bomb was falling with a characteristic screeching sound, an Air Raid precaution Warden was walking past our house. He threw himself into the gutter for safety. He then got up and knocked on our front door to ask if anyone was there. He told dad to keep away from the front of the house because the whole wall was leaning dangerously. Then they found that the back door had blown out with the kitchen wall and the bathroom window frame was on the back lawn. Also the bedroom above the garage was rocking precariously at an angle to the rest of the house.
The three of us in the shelter felt like a bone being thrown about by a dog. It was very frightening. Mother had kept a small bottle of brandy for emergencies, but she forgot all about it. She also forgot to write notes for us to take to school next day. In the morning we were invited to have breakfast with a local family at 9am. We had porridge without sugar or milk followed by bacon served from a silver dish. When I arrived at school I apolgised for being late, mentioning that we had been bombed out. No one believed me!
Soon we were offered the house opposite. The owners were going away for 'the duration,' meaning until the war finished. Six months later they came back, they could not cope with living away from home. While we were there a 'dog fight' took place just above us; I wanted to watch it but mother said "No."
We had several temporary addresses until dad bought a chicken house intended for hundreds of birds. This wooden structure was mounted on four feet of brickwork to give us a three bedroom bungalow. We lived in it for three years.
Our original neighbour was a postman. One day whilst on his round there was an air raid. He went into a public shelter nearby. When things quietened down he went outside to see if all was well; another explosion killed him.
My sister was cycling home one day when a trigger happy fighter pilot scared her stiff:he shot a few bullets into the road either side of her.
Later on the convent was flattened by a landmine. (This was rather like a sea mine which came down by parachute). All the pupils and staff were in their shelter, but one nun was injured when the door was blown onto her.
A flying bomb or 'doodle bug' landed in my school swimming bath. The boarders had just finished swimming and had gone through the gymnasium into the main school building. The bomb blast blew out all the gymnasium windows.
For several summer holidays I went to a boy's camp; sometimes it was in Hertfordshire and sometimes in Wales. The leaders volunteered our services to help local people. So we picked fruit, lifted potatoes, trimmed avenues through newly planted pine forests and trimmed the felled trees ready for transport.
One of my uncles, in his 30's, became a flight engineer in an Avro Lancaster bomber. His crew nicknamed him 'grandad' because they were in their teens. After many bombing raids he volunteered to go on an extra flight, his plane was badly damaged and hit a hill near Bergen Op Zoom in Holland. Only the tail gunner survived.
Another uncle joined ENSA to entertain and encourage the forces personnel. My Godfather and his wife lived in Malaya and died when they tried to escape by ship. It was torpedoed by the Japanese.
When we cleared our site ready for the new house to be built we dismantled the chicken house and found a piece of shrapnel about six inches long and two inches wide balanced on the rafter immediately over my pillow.
The War Damage Commission paid for our repairs to major items of furniture, like mothers piano and a chair which had been in at least fifty pieces. Craftsmen took delight in making things well. The Commission also paid the 1939 value of the house to help to pay for the new one, in our case it was 拢1,700 short. For most of the war years we sacrificed our egg ration for duck food and kept Khaki Campbells. We had duck eggs most days. We also had an allotment and some fruit trees in the garden, so we had plenty of fruit and vegetables. Mother used to preserve loads of produce, including any spare duck eggs. Ours was a healthy diet. Looking back I thank God for keeping us safe, but I pray for those whose only memories are sad.

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