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My home was in London but when war started I was on holiday with my grandmother in Epsom. I was twelve years old, and we were advised to stay in the country. My mother was with two younger brothers and me. I went to school in Ewell. There were not many evacuees there and I loved being in the country. I had a bicycle to go to school. By September 1940, there had been no air raids, so my mother and brothers returned to North London, but I stayed behind with my grandmother, so that I could carry on with my education. Soon after that the air raids started, and my mother and brothers were sent to live with my aunt in Norfolk. My father took me to Norfolk for Christmas, and as the air raids were so heavy it was decided I should stay there, so that meant another school and this one was well behind the one I had just left. The local people were rather hostile to evacuees, but as my father was a native of the town, we were accepted. We were known as the ‘boy Billy’s’ children,’ and we all picked up the Norfolk accent. I left school in 1941, at the age of fifteen, and worked in a shop, but by May the Blitz was quiet and we all returned to London; I hated it with all its dirty old buildings. I didn’t have any friends, but I had to go to work in a bank, although I didn’t like figure work, but in those days we did as father told us. Hitler attacked us again from the air, with rockets followed by doodlebugs, somehow we got used to it, taking cover or falling flat on the ground to prevent injury. We tried to live a normal teenage life, going to the cinema or town hall dances, where we met young men in the forces on leave. I was too young to be called up for war service but a friend and I did voluntary work in a Salvation Army canteen two evenings a week. We were often asked to escort young men on leave in London, to see the sights that were still standing. So we met young men from America, Poland and Scandinavian countries. My parents were quite happy to invite them to our house for a meal in spite of meagre rations.

By 1944 it was apparent that the second front was imminent. Forces and the GI’s were disappearing from London and on 6 June we heard on the news that our troops had landed in France. Sadly there was a great loss of life at first but gradually English and American troops pushed the Germans back with the help of the French Resistance. Air raids on London ceased and by May 1945 the war in Europe was over. There were great celebrations all over the country: street parties for the children, somehow the housewives made cakes and a variety of goodies, the blackout was finished and lights came on everywhere including neon advertising lights which a lot of children had never seen. Life gradually returned to normal, and it was wonderful not to blackout the windows and to go out at night without a torch. Food was still rationed but eventually we saw oranges and bananas again. Clothes rationing finished first and the girls were able to buy pretty dresses again and best of all, brothers, boyfriends, fathers and sons returned from the war in their demob suits. It would have taken nearly two years for some to return because the war in the far east was still ongoing until August 1945. The prisoners of war were repatriated to their home countries. A friend returned from a German prison camp, he was so thin he looked like a skeleton but by November he was married to his fiancé. This was a time of happy reunions and many weddings.

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