大象传媒

In about 1944, when I was 8 years old I was playing football on a small triangle of green opposite the shops at Lower Bevendean Avenue in Moulsecoomb. We had little area to play on because the whole of the Avenue was put over to allotments. We heard the awful jug of a Doodlebug. We all stopped, looked up and turned slowley following its flight across the sky and then dismissed the incident and carried on playing. I had no feeling of fear and neither did my friends, I was too young know the danger.

I had a large collection of shrapnel, silver paper and fins from bombs. We had a Military Training Ground at Hogtrough Bottom which we knew as 'Happy Valley'. Many children were injured and some killed collecting and dismantling armaments. It is only now that i realised what people were putting up with and the many people that were killed.

I was walking home from Coomb Road School with Connie Evans, when we saw in the sky a number of planes engaging the German planes. We had been told to throw ourselves on the ground or against the hedge and this is what we did. A lady came out from a house on the south side of Crayford Road, and took us both into her house and gave us a bun and Lemonade made with powder and water. We both talked about this as we went home thinking it might be a good thing to try again to get a bun and some lemonade!

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