大象传媒

My first memory of the impending war started in early 1939 when I was 12 years old. Strange looking objects started to appear in the sky, they were called barrage balloons and would prevent enemy planes flying low and using there machine guns on the civilians. Incidentally I was living in the East end of London very close to the Victoria docks. Each day more and more balloons filled the sky, which as a child made me; feel rather secure eventually we had the call to have gas masks fitted I remember how funny we looked in them and what rude noises they made as we breathing in and out. My parents were becoming more and more alarmed and relished war was imminent and fully agreed with the government鈥檚 evacuation scheme for children
Towards the end of august, 1939, each day we had to take with us too school a haversack fully of all our clothes etc. After doing this for a quite a few days. Our teacher on the first day of September came to tell us that we were going to walk in an orderly fashion to the nearest rail station, because the time had come for us to be evacuated. Some parents got to hear about this and came dashing along to say their good byes. I did not see my mother, perhaps that was just as well! We were not told were we were going after a long journey we arrived at a place called Bath in the West Country. We were taken to a school and an elderly couple that was very kind picked out my friend and me along with two others.
Bath was a very different place to where I had lived in London. We had a long walk to school each day but I did like the surroundings. At fast it all seemed like a holiday until I began to feel homesick and miss my family. I went home and understood that I would have to go and live with my aunt in Okehampton because it was too dangerous to live in London.
Air raids started on September 1940 and London experienced the really horror of the war. My mother left her home in the docks of East London with my sister and came down to Devon to stay.
I love my life Okehampton and decide then and there I never wanted to leave. Even though we were at war to me it seemed so safe and beautiful. Many British solders and personnel from other countries who had been over run by the Germans all crowded in to Okehampton and the surrounding rural areas. Entertainment had to be found for them. Many dances were arranged and the female population of our small town was bowled over. I was too young take part but my mother helped with refreshments and I went along to help her.
I worked for the ministry of food when I left school issuing ration books and identity cards. We were also had to help the farmers fill in forms for extra rations for haymaking, corn harvest etc. There were forms for every thing even one for killing a pig! Some of the questions we had to ask and some of the replies we got were hilarious. Education must have been very poor in those days, some of the farmers could not sign their name and had to put a cross instead. We also issued clothing coupons, sweet coupons, special baby foods, vitamin (E), orange juice, rose tip syrup and cod liver oil. The health of the nation was very important. Fire watching was another duty that was called upon to do. I remember my mother and aunt were given a very eerie area near the ruins of Okehampton castle and one night they came rushing in faces white and risibly upset and said, 鈥� They had seen the ghost of lady Howard!!鈥� The siren was rather alarming and on hearing it we all huddled together under the stairs. We could hear the drone of enemy aircraft going overhead to bomb Exeter we eventually heard the bombardment from our town.
In 1943 the American soldiers arrived, their uniforms were very smart and our troops did not take kindly to this. I think they felt at a disadvantage with the opposite sex sometimes at local dances disturbance occurred which occasionally got out of hand. I felt sorry for them they had come all this way to fight our war and needed cheering up. Things settled down eventually and many families鈥檚 opened their doors to them. Qirus fell in love and if there men survived the war they would become war brides and went to live on America. My last vivid and sad recollection was in 1944 when I was 17 years old. Convoys of troops were going to Okehampton day and night for a long period of time. We had some idea of what was happening. They were making there way to Plymouth and what turned out to be D-Day.
Lifers were very much disrupted my sister married a local lad he was soldier in the royal courts of signals in 1942. He was then sent out to Cairo and she never again until 1946. You might say my war apart from the beginning had lots of happy memories. I think, because of my age I didn鈥檛 dwell too much on the sad happenings, in was very lucky.

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