大象传媒

I was nearly five years old when the war started. On that day, a Sunday, we were all going to a picnic at the beach about a mile away. That included my family, my cousin Lesley (who was staying with us and was a year older than me) plus two evacuees who were billeted at the farm where my father worked. We all went off apart from my mother who was to come later with our lunch.

It was a lovely day, sun shining and the tide out with rock pools exposed. We had just settled ourselves when an air raid warden in a tin hat ran along the promenade ringing a big bell. The war had begun and an enemy plane had been sighted! We all thought we were about to be bombed so everyone started to leave, running along the promenade beneath the cliff, making for the access to the village. My Dad saw a man poking around in the rockpools. Knowing he was deaf he rushed down to tell him what was happening, whereupon he promptly fell backwards into the water!

To my disgust I was put in the pram with my little brother. I was horrified too, to see a boy running along with his shirt hanging out.

The greengrocer's van was waiting at the road and we all piled in the back with people squeezed in around the sides. The pram, with me still in it, was in the centre. When we arrived home we found my mother laughing as she had just seen a lady rushing past us with her gas mask on.

However nothing awful happened that day and we all had a lovely picnic in the garden!

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