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"If the Invader comes: What to Do and How to Do It". This was the leaflet the people of Kent and Sussex were issued with. "Do not give the Germans anything. Do not tell them anything. Hide your food, bicycles, maps and petrol. Put your car out of action: make it useless to anybody. And always carry pepper to throw in their eyes and a sharp knife to kill them if necessary".

This was terror time: living on a knife-edge. You did not have to look very hard that morning across the English Channel to see the faint blur of a line of barges along the French coast. In my mind's eye I could see the invasion beginning, and my thinking that only a miracle could save my England.

"Mum" I'd said. "Get to Granddad's at Appledore, or Uncle Wilf鈥檚 at Marden".
"Ruthie" she replied. "We could get killed just as easy there as here. You get back to Manston while you can. We will be all right. We will all help one another if the Germans start coming across."
There was no sense arguing with her, or my dad, so I gathered up my packet of tomato sandwiches and a large slice of lardy cake. I put them in my kit bag and put my arms around her. We were both crying, and as she put my WAAF hat firmly on my head I looked across her shoulder. My dad winked his eye and said 鈥淭ake care, love".
"You, too." I answered. I felt terrible leaving them with the might of the German Army only 18 miles away.

I had been back at the Manston front line fighter station for only two days when all hell broke loose. So many bombs dropping the ground shook like an earthquake. Once again our fighter station was fighting for its life. Suddenly, with one almighty blinding flash and huge spurts of red and yellow flame, our sleeping quarters got a direct hit.

The damage was bad, and we were told we would be housed in the Catholic school in the village. We had a rummage round to see what could be saved, and two young soldiers from a gun battery in the next field moved twenty girls and all their bits and bobs, in exchange for a box of Cox's orange pippins and half a pound of butter that my uncle Wilf had sent over from his smallholding near Marden.

This story was entered on the site by Kairen Kemp on behalf of Ruth Godding who understands the site's terms and conditions.

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