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This story was submitted to the People's War site by a tutor from Link into Learning on behalf of Margaret Morrell and has been added to the site with her permission. Margaret fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was just eleven years of age when the war broke out in 1939. My parents had a small Anderson shelter, built in our very small back garden, which was sunk about four feet down into the earth and was covered with the grass turfs dug up from our small lawn. It was very uncomfortable, with a beaten-earth floor and no heating at all. My father had built four bunks of wood, two each side, for us to sleep on. For the first few weeks of the war we did not have to use it much, but after a couple of months the nighttime air raids started. We were pulled out of bed by my parents, wrapped in blankets and hurried down to the shelter when the air raid siren sounded. We stayed there until the all-clear siren went and then we returned to bed — maybe two hours later.

Until the spring of 1940 there was not a lot of action (now called The Phoney War) but daylight raids started to increase so we often had to leave our classroom and file in a quiet and orderly way to the tunnels that had been dug for us in the hillside of the playground. To prepare for this we had a crate of bottles full of fresh water each day and a portable toilet, carried by four monitors appointed each week, to take to the shelter when the siren sounded — very well organised — orderly with no panic or rush. Usually there was time to evacuate the school because the siren was sounded early, as planes approached over the sea. I had to take my Eleven-Plus exam in the air raid shelter as raids had increased by the spring-summer of 1940. Desks were taken to the shelter before school started and spaced out to avoid cheating, but this meant the rest of the school were crammed into the remaining space and had stories read to them to keep them quiet. It was a difficult time but the school was reduced as many parents had sent their children to other, safer, parts of the country, or to other relatives.

As our school was near the Devonport Dockyard and faced on to the perimeter boundary of the Royal Naval Barracks, we often had German planes surveying the local area, but usually the air raid siren had sounded to warn us. However, one afternoon in the summer of 1940, a crowd of children, maybe 8 or 10 of us, were crossing the nearby park on our way home, some playing around as children do, when an aeroplane circled the park. No siren had been sounded so we were not worried and took no notice. As it came lower I looked up and could see the German cross on the side and then it started to machine-gun us. It was a Heinkel 108 with two men in it who were targeting us as we walked on the grass. I shouted to the younger children and we all rushed to hide in the bushes nearby. We were very scared and a long way from an air raid shelter and from home, but we stayed in the bushes until the plane had gone and then all ran home. I don’t remember anyone being hit that day but maybe someone on the other side of the park was unlucky.

As the raids increased at night we started going to bed on the bunks in the shelter, fully-clothed for warmth and beds already made up with pillows and blankets. My bedtime was then 9 o’clock, but we often had to go to bed earlier as the raids usually started by about 9 p.m. and went on until 4 a.m. We got used to sleeping in the shelter, as did most of the remaining population (some had moved out of Plymouth by September 1940), but the heavy bombing and blitzes really started in spring 1941. The Plymouth Blitzes started at the end of March 1941 and continued into April 1941 with the Devonport Blitz. Our house was so badly damaged that after April we were not able to sleep there. Buses in Plymouth were still operating spasmodically. Early each evening we caught a bus to take us to Roborough on the outskirts of the city and walked 12 miles to my Uncles home at Walkhampton. Many of the remaining residents of the town left at night to avoid the bombing, taking tents and blankets. They either slept on the moor or in churches or village halls nearby. Because so many lorries were being destroyed by incendiary bombs, the Naval barracks near where we lived started sending lorries out to Dartmoor each night when the Devonport Blitz started. After walking the 12 miles to my uncle’s home for some time, we were later able to climb into the lorries and be taken over Dartmoor.

We were lucky to have a comfortable house to go to; some of the family had to sleep on the floor, as there were two cousins evacuated there from London already, but it was a safe haven that many other people from Plymouth did not have. The air raids on the city continued up until 1945 and it was remarkable how people helped each other, giving any spare clothing or food to those who had been bombed-out. Rationing of food had been established then for a couple of years, and also clothes rationing, meaning everyone had to economise with everything. Furniture rationing came later with a coupon system and newly married couples were given just enough coupons to set up a small house with furniture. Our house was badly affected by the Devonport blitz in April 1941 and we lost most of the roof and ceilings. We thought we were lucky as many people around us had their houses destroyed.

When I was 13 years old I joined the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade Cadets and we were often called out to help on daytime raid damage or hospital duty, helping staff to treat raid casualties. I helped in this way until 1945 when the air raids stopped. Nearly everyone put in some war-effort. Most teenagers were in some movement to help others in trouble; the Red Cross, St. John’s, Scouts or Guides, spending hours collecting clothing, food or necessities to help bombed-out victims. I often did cinema duty at crowded cinemas to relieve senior ambulance staff, who were on duty at night, so they got some sleep during the day. The Sea Cadets and Army Cadets were also very useful and helped with many projects. The war-effort was very important to everyone including teenagers in Plymouth and Devonport.

We had to grow up very quickly during the war and rarely played as children do now. As a teenager I mostly remember helping to dig people out of bombed houses and holidays spent helping to treat bomb casualties in hospitals. I would like all young people of the future to realise that war is terrible for EVERYONE.

Margaret Morrell March 2005

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