大象传媒

The flying bombs started about 1943, as near as I can remember. They used to sound like a motorboat and flames came out of the tail end. They didn't fly very high so we could stand in our garden and watch them fly over the trees at the top of Park Road (Sittingbourne) as that seemed to be a flight path. We would feel safe unless the engine stopped; then you knew it was going to come down and blow up. The flying bombs seemed to come over at regular intervals from evening onwards. I must mention that with double summer time summers and evenings stayed light until about 11.00 p.m.

My daughter, Susan, was born in May 1943. When she was a few months old I remember being awoken one night by a sharp cracking noise. It was very moonlight and I saw from the bedroom window light streaks across the sky almost outside. I realised it was a dogfight between an enemy plane and one of ours. I was out of bed and grabbed Susan from her cot and fled downstairs. I don't remember my feet touching the stairs.

To get a rest from the flying bombs in August 1944 I decided to go down to Bournemouth to stay with my husband's parents. On August Bank Holiday with my mother and father, Hilda and William White, Susan and I went to Bournemouth. We had to queue in the underground station at Waterloo but were soon allowed on the train and left the station, praying that we wouldn't get a bomb on us. At this time the raids on the cities were quite bad so the south coastal towns were opened for people to leave the city. Sittingbourne was a restricted area and we could travel in our area but people couldn't come from an unrestricted area without special permission. Bournemouth was one of the places people flocked to. In Boscombe local people took over empty shops and people came down from London, finding any old `digs`. My father-in-law, Albert White,
had a shop selling second-hand goods and objects d'art and he was kept busy selling household furniture - buckets, pots and anything people could get. It was quite a holiday atmosphere. Susan and I stayed about 6 weeks so I bought another pram there.

One of the first things we had to do was to go to the local Food Office to get emergency ration cards. My mum-in-law was waiting almost at the door to grab my ration book so she could dash to the shop opposite to get the tea ration.

In Kent, whenever there was a raid at night we always got up and went to the cellar or air raid shelter and made tea. It used to be very weak tea but we got used to that.

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