大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Mike Garofalo from Westree Learning Centre and has been added to the website on behalf of Mrs Joy Burr with her permission and they fully understand the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was almost 8 when the war started, my first memory was of an air raid and we were told to stop at the first available house or shop, ours was a hairdresser, off we went with gas masks over our shoulders.
We lived at Leslie rd, we had an Anderson bomb shelter in the garden, which my father corked out and put bunk beds in, plus a bed on the floor for my Grandmother, there were 5 of us, my mother, father, Grandmother, my sister and myself.
At first we used to be woken 3 or 4 times a night when the sirens sounded to go to our centre but as they got more frequent we turned it into our bedroom.

A bomb dropped a few streets away which went off in corporation rd. I believe people were killed; we had a bomb drop opposite us on pier rd which did not go off. We had a high wall running down our garden which gave us a good view of the damage and of the soldiers that came to clear it.

My father was an ambulance driver in the dock yard and as black market was rife, everyone got what they could when they could, so my father managed to get a block of dark chocolate which was really horrible and bitter but my mother used to grate it and make cocoa out of it. My sister and I used to take the soldiers jugs of this cocoa while they were clearing the site. My father also managed to get a large bag of brown sugar which was not available to most people. One day our insurance man called, mum was very scared as she had a bowl of this sugar on the kitchen table and she was very worried that she would be reported. As soon as the man went she quickly changed the bowl of sugar to a bowl of cornflakes in case he and the police came back. My sister and I of course were sworn to secrecy.

When at school and the sirens went, if you could get home in 3 minutes you could go home and come back again. We were a bit naughty as it took us almost a quarter of an hour, because we used play, whip and top and skip home.
Food was on ration and also clothes no ICE CREAM was available and not much fruit, sweet ration was about the equivalent of one mars bar a month, definitely could not get fat on that!
As clothes were on ration we did not have much of a choice, so mum bought us what was known as hand me downs, Mum bought shoes, coats, dresses etc from parents whose children had grown out of them.
We did not have school meals at my school so we had to go to a central canteen in skinners street if we wanted a mid day lunch. I wanted to try it so mum let me go one day and I remember that I had meat pie and Jam roly poly and custard. This was absolutely wonderful.
The war ended the in 1945 but food and clothes remained on ration for many years after the war.
We had a big street party after the war at the parochial hall in Gillingham, mothers made sandwiches and cakes for the party and good time was had by all.

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