大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Gill Papi from Bodsham Primary School and has been added to the website on behalf of Valerie Perez with her permission and they fully understand the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.
MRS PEREZ鈥橲 STORY
Mrs Perez and her family were living in the countryside in 1939 until1943 attending a dame school in Winchester. Father in the navy, a commander of HMS WISHART, at one time his ship came to Southampton one time and the whole family were allowed to visit the ship.
Mrs Perez was 6 when the war started, and heard the declaration of the war on the radio at her grandmother鈥檚 house with her family.
She started school as the war started and school carried on much the same in fact children had much more of a free rein than children have today because the adults were preoccupied with the war.
Mrs Perez and her sister went to a local wood and collected wood and sold it to the local people and made 5 pounds which they sent to Mrs Churchill for the Aid to Russia Fund, and got a hand written letter of thanks in return.
Her house was not bombed but they could hear bombs being dropped in Southampton, which was completely flattened.
Just before D Day they knew something important was about to happen because there was a convoy of heavy army vehicles for 3 days along the A33 to Southampton and her mother got them out of bed at 11 o鈥檆lock at night to watch gliders flying to Normandy.
The social life in the village was great, people had tennis courts and tennis parties, dances in the village hall, they wore the latest fashions of dresses with tiny waists and big skirts and a boyfriend of hers sent her some nylons from America. She had lots of boyfriends and didn鈥檛 like it when her father came out of the navy because she didn鈥檛 have the freedom that she had before.
Mother was a doctor and had to drive around giving lectures about health and first aid, and because all the signposts had been taken down they had to learn to be good map readers to find their way around.

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