大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People's War Site by CSV Storygatherer Linda Finlay on behalf of Peggy West. the story has been added to the site with her permission. And Peggy West fully understands the terms and conditions of the site.

I was 17 years old when the War started in 1939.

Two years later I was conscripted into the ATS, Auxiliary Territorial Service (Women's Army). I did not want to go, I was very happy at home and had an interesting career working in London in an office. However, our country was at war and our soldiers were fighting for their lives, so we went gladly to help. At first we found the life very hard, the discipline was extremely strict and we lived in wooden huts. I was really looking forward t going home for weekend leave.

Home was out family house in Wood Green, London and was full of love, warmth and comfort. My parents were delighted to see me and we enjoyed out days together. They had been having air raids at night, so as soon as it was dark we hurried to the shelter at the bottom of our garden. This was a sort of hut made of corrugated iron buried in the soil, which had been supplied by the government. It was cold, damp and very uncomfortable, and we slept fitfully on hard bunk beds. for the first two nights noghting happened, I guess bad weather had grounded the German planes, maybe fog. The third night, the last of my leave, we decided to risk sleeping in our own bedrooms. It was wonderful to be back in my own pretty pink bedroom and lying down in bed on its feather mattress. I was soon fast asleep. CRACK Not a boom or bang but an ear splitting crack - then for a moment utter silence - then the sound of falling glass, chinkle, chinkle, chinkle, every window every picture and mirror shattered, Then the dreadful suffocating smell of thick dust and soot, difficult to breathe. I found myself lying on the floor, I had been blown out of bed. I picked myself up and ran across the landing into my parent's room very afraid of what I might find. Fortunately, they were unhurt apart from a few cuts from flying glass. My sister in her room nearby, was also unharmed. We groped in the dark for our clothes, there was no light or heat, of course, and made our way carefully down the stairs, dazed, into the street. In the moonlight we could see the roof of our house was missing. All around us was devastation, some of our neighbours were sobbing quietly at the destructions of their homes, and further down the road people were killed and badly injured. As we stood there shaking from the shock, in the darkness, we heard the throb, throb, throb of more German planes with more bombs coming over London. I remember thinking 'Please no more, we cannot take any more' and yet we took more, much more, before the war was over. However, the planes flew over to kill other poor souls that night. As daylight broke, we looked at each other and smiled throgh our tears, as our faces were jet black from all that awful dust and soot. Yet we never doubted for one moment we would win. We were fighting for freedom, we were patriotic and we had faith in God.

So we just pulled ourselves together (no counselling in those days) and began to clear up the debris. Weeks later a tarpaulin was fixed over the roof of our house and my parents continued to live there for the duration of the war. I had to rturn the next day to my ATS unit but we still considered ourselves extremely lucky to be alive.

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