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This is Matthew Davis of Southmoor School, Sunderland entering Alan Couplands story onto the website and they fully understand the website terms and conditions of use.

I was 5 years old when the war started. Too young to enlist but I had two uncles who served in the war. One in the Army, Uncle Fred who served in North Africa and Italy, and one in the Merchant Navy, Uncle Jim who served on a collier carrying coal from the North East to power stations in London. 2 days after D-Day Uncle Jims ship helped supply the troops in Normandy.

As a small boy the war was an exiting time, a great big adventure. I used to use our air raid shelter as a den. The shelter was very damp and dark so we never really used it for its proper purpose. The walls were about 30cms thick and the roof 20cms but surprisingly it only had a wooden door. When ever I had the time I would play football or cricket with my friends. Then if we were bored we go and look for bits of shrapnel. Every one had a collection of shrapnel, we used to swap each other bits and bobs.

School was very normal unfortunately. The only difference was the gas mask we carried and the weekly air raid drills, until the first day back after the school holidays. The previous night the air raid sounded and my mum woke me up, we just made it to the shelter when there was a huge bang. The bang blow out all of the windows in the back of the house. I just thought nothing of it until the next morning. I took my normal route to school as I did many a time but this time was different I turned the corner and there was a smouldering Valley Road Junior school. Every school boys dream had come true me, I had another 3 weeks on top of the holidays. When I eventually had to go back to school lessons were conducted in church halls and anywhere else they could find to use as a school. This continued until the end of the war.

Life nowadays is definitely better now than during the war. There is no shortage of food or clothes as there was then. Medical, transport and social services are now much better. You can visit the beach and parts of Mowbray park which were off limits due to barrage balloon tethers and anti invasion devices. Overall everyone does not know how lucky they are.

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