´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Matthew Smaldon on behalf of Arthur Pocock and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Pocock fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

'I was 8 when the war started. We lived in Slough, near a trading estate that was used a lot in the war, with supplies, and thing like that. You just carried on normally, the best you could. I was in the Boy Scouts, and I remember collecting newspapers in a wheel barrow, going door to door, to be recycled for the war effort.

I can remember coming home at night, and all along the roads near the trading estate were these great big paraffin burners. They were about 4 foot tall. You talk about pollution today — they were used to produce thick black smoke to hide the trading estate from bombers.

Every Friday I would take the number 81 bus which goes from Slough to Houndslow. We would stop at Colnebrook to see my Gran. You could see across to what is now Heathrow airport, and there were always searchlights, and tracer bullets going up into the sky (they were called onions — I don’t know why). But with all this happening, the buses still carried on.

One day I was playing cards with my brother’s mother-in-law and her family and her house in Colnebrook. We heard a bomb coming down, so we all jumped under the table at the same time. We were laughing like mad, with all our bums sticking out. I remember having to sleep in the damp, wet Anderson shelter in our garden too. Later in the war I was cycling home when I heard a doodlebug. When the engine stopped, I dived under the hedge. It crashed in Burnham in Buckinghamshire.

My father worked for the Admiralty Compass Observatory. From the start of the war he was working night shifts. My brothers were called up. The eldest joined the RAF. He served in Yorkshire, and then went to India to help feed the people in Burma. His wife was in the WAAFs, on ambulance duty. My next brother was in the military police. He was sent to India too — he was in Calcutta when there were riots after the war, and was later sent to Tel Aviv.

At the end of the war, I can remember the VJ celebrations. They were held in an allotment in Slough. There was lots of food, and somehow people managed to buy fireworks. There was dancing in the road, and as it was getting dark the Mayor of Slough set off the fireworks. Well, the first rocket backfired and blew up the whole lot, which burnt down all the allotment fences. So that was the end of the VJ party!'

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.