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WW2 People’s War

My parents lived in a village in the County of Kent. I was nearly 4 years old when the hostilities neared the French coast, and as a precaution my mother took me further inland to Redhill in Surrey, where we stayed with my grandparents.

One day Mum made some sandwiches and we set off to take them to my grandfather who apparently was helping at the station. ‘Help’ was handing out mugs of tea, chocolate and cigarettes to the hundreds of soldiers on trains travelling back from the Kent and Sussex coasts after rescue from the Dunkirk beaches.

The trains had to stop at Redhill Station because the engine had to change ends in order to travel on the correct track up to the Midlands and North of England. I was overwhelmed by the dirtiness of the soldiers, with their tattered mud-splattered uniforms, many with improvised bandages and slings for their wounded limbs, as I was always kept clean! They were leaning out of every door and window for their cigarettes and lights, hot tea and food, passing on what they could to their exhausted companions. Some of the more seriously wounded were taken off to go to the local hospitals. The train eventually moved slowly away to the waves and cheers of both soldiers and helpers. It was many years later that I asked my mother about this event, and she was amazed that I had remembered so many details.

Not long afterwards, during one horrendous night, nearby Croydon was bombed and for the first time we had to spent all night in the indoor shelter erected in my aunt’s dining room. After that, we moved to near Huntingdon. We used to go out gathering rosehips from the hedgerows in the autumn, for processing into Vitamin C syrup, and watched the American bombers taking off, circling to gain height, and then set off in formation to their destination. Frequently we would see a plane with an engine missing and tattered wings, hedge-hopping back the next day! The locals knew where the planes were heading from the time of departure.

During the occupation of France, the German heavy guns in Calais continually shelled Dover, 21 miles across the English Channel .My father worked there continuously during the bombardments. After the Normandy landings, and the shelling ceased, we immediately returned home. My mother then took me to Dover to see the damaged town. The buildings nearer the port and in the market place were roofless, cavernous structures, leaning at perilous angles across the roads. The roads were virtually blocked to any vehicles, due to piles of rubble and huge potholes.

The best time was when George V1 and Queen Elizabeth travelled to Kearsney Station to go to visit Dover town, and I was taken to wave to them as they passed in the Royal car.

But…. Mum what is a banana?

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