大象传媒

This story was submitted to the Peoples War website by a volunteer from Three Counties Action at the Stevenage Renaissance Club on behalf of Mrs Michaelson and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Michaelson fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Every Sunday my 3 sister and I used to go to the swimming pool in Tooting Beck it was an outdoor pool but on this day it was shut,. So we went home and told my parents and asked if they knew why it was closed. They said turn on the wireless so we did and that鈥檚 when we found out that we were at war. I was only 12 at the time but had already felt something was going to happen. You felt a war was coming as people were building air raid shelters and they knew something was up.

My father was a fireman and someone鈥檚 wife was having a baby so he took his place during the Blitz and he was killed. I think that happened in 1940.

I was evacuated to Surrey but then my mother married again. One time my stepfather said 鈥渓ets take the dogs鈥� for a walk. As we walked along we saw all these gliders and planes overhead 鈥� that was D Day. Another time I saw a German plane going across and you could see the red sky. Once I even came face to face with a German pilot. He came out of the woods but he was caught.

After that I was walking down the road one afternoon and a doodlebug came over and crashed to the ground not far from me, it scared the life out of me but I wasn鈥檛 hurt but it did shake me up.

Then I went to boarding school and was there when VE Day happened. I didn鈥檛 really know what was going on but I know it felt great.

To be honest I feel we鈥檙e still not at peace not while all this terrorism is happening at the moment and only when they are stopped will we know peace again.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.