大象传媒

It was September 1939. We - that is my mum, dad, sister Margaret and me were on holiday in a little place called Ironbridge in Shropshire. I was nearly seven and Margaret was 12 months older. We were staying with relatives of my mother - Uncle Sam and Aunt Nell who had a small-holding with pigs and chickens and grew all their own fruit and veg. We kids loved going there, paddling in the stream which ran at the bottom of their garden, having picnics and exploring the area with their daughter Irene who was quite a bit older than us.

We had been at Aunt Nell's for a couple of days. It was Sunday morning and for some reason all the grown-ups seemed very jumpy. Half way through the morning several of the neighbours came in and they all sat round the wireless in the living room listening intently. We were told to be quiet and then a man's very solemn voice came over the air saying something about "Britain declaring War on Nazi Germany". There was a few seconds deathly silence. Then "Oh my God" said one of the older men "that's torn it". The women started to cry, all the men were talking at once and my mum jumped up saying she was going to pack and we had to go home. "Don't be daft Edie" said Dad "It's Sunday there won't be any buses or trains, we'll have to go home tomorrow". Margaret and I started to wail. "We can't go home, you promised to take us to the seaside to Rhyl tomorrow." Nobody took any notice of us so we continued to protest very loudly, until Dad got annoyed and shouted at us to "shut-up". We then started to cry, so Aunt Nell took us into the kitchen, gave us lemonade and home-made biscuits and explained that a nasty man called Hitler was causing trouble in a place called Poland (wherever that was) and our young men would have to go and sort him out. We learned later that Nell's two sons went into the Army almost immediately and one was very badly wounded in France.

After a great deal of talk and to-ing and fro-ing it was decided that we should come home on the Monday. Strangely, I can't remember how we got home, whether it was by train or coach, but we hated this "Hitler bloke" who had ruined our holiday.

In the next few months as far as we were concerned nothing happened and we couldn't understand what all the fuss had been about. As the war went on of course and we got older we realised that the situation WAS serious especially when the bombing started and our dad was called up and we didn't see him for months; but that's another story.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jenni Hern of the CSV Action Desk on behalf of Mrs M. Jeffery and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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