大象传媒

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Percy Ireland age 7 in 1939 when war was declared; I was at Westwood Central School,Falconwood,Welling,Kent and we were told by the head master that if we were less than half way to school and the siren was sounded we were to go home but if we were nearer the school we were to hurry on to school. The reality was that even if we were in the school playground when the siren sounded we all ran out of the gates and ran home. Sometimes on the way home after the siren had been sounded we were dragged off the pavement into houses by mothers we did not know and pushed into their shelter. One day my friend Keneth Fordham was not at school amd on the way home some friends and I called at his house to see him but where his house had been there was just bricks and ruble and we were told that him and his whole family had been killed by an H.E. bomb the night before. As soon as an all clear was sounded we would be out looking for bits of schrapnel which coould be heard during the raid hitting metal dustbins or corrigated roofs of sheds. Because Welling was on the bomber's route up beside the Thames to London we were evacuated to the remoter village of Cranbrook where at the age of 8 we saw an army deserter shot and killed by accident, as he ran the soldiers running after him shot at his legs, but as they fired he stumbled and the shots killed him, his body was taken away and the blood on the ground was covered over with sand. As the Battle of Britain carried on I was sent down to Bude in Cornwall to stay with my Mother's sister. One day walking with two cousins, Terry and Viv Becket, on the beach we saw red flags stuck across the sand under the cliffs, being now about 10 we were moving to get a closer look at what was hapening when there was a huge explosion. A mine that had washed up had been detonated by the Coast Guards who had put the flags out as a warning; not an invitation to get closer. We all threw ourselves onto the sand behind rocks as sand and stones fell all around but none hurt us and no one saw us. As a child you did not have to live in a city to have war experiences you just had to be a normal nosey kid. Picture of Percy with Viv & Terry Becket outside Buckingham Palace with the medal received that day in summer 1944 by their dad from King George V1 to be added.

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