大象传媒

Transcript of an interview in September 2005 with Barbara Crook of Hoo, Rochester.

Barbara was born in 1913, and is currently 92 years old.

I don鈥檛 have any memories of the First World War. I only remember being told about the bombing of the Naval Barracks in Chatham Dockyard during the First World War.

I was 24 at the beginning of the Second World War. I lived in Medway with my parents then moved to Sidcup (Chislehurst) after I married in 1937, because my husband was working there. We returned later to Chatham.

Before the war we lived in Dale Street/Ordnance Street near the railway in Chatham.

My husband was in the London Fire Service and I came up to Sidcup to be with him, and that鈥檚 where I had my family.

We lived on Lincoln Road, Sidcup Hill and there were lots of bombing, blackouts and it was really horrid. The barrage balloons over London stopped just outside of Sidcup, so the planes couldn鈥檛 get into London and they would drop their bombs over Sidcup and Chislehurst. That was kind of them wasn鈥檛 it!

We had an air raid shelter in the garden. I think the council put it in, because my husband was always out fighting fires. But they didn鈥檛 deliberately mean to bomb us, they just wanted to get rid of their bombs. I had a buzz bomb (doodlebug) in the front garden and one of the ordinary bombs in the back garden. You could hear the buzz bombs coming over and then the engine would cut out and there would be a terrific bang. It was horrible too. We had a few incendiary bombs as well.

I worked in the office at Klingers in Sidcup. They made things for planes. So I was doing war work.

We weren鈥檛 too bad off for food at the beginning. I did have a couple of young billets. Someone came round and said that they had to find places to billet people and we had a fairly big house. These boys were a nice couple of boys, they weren鈥檛 fighters, they were dealing with the electricity. They were doing war work but got called up later. I had to cook for them and we got extra rations for them. The wife of one of them still writes to me, she lives in Wales now. They were nice boys, no trouble at all.

We kept chickens. One was called Daphne, and she was a bit of a nuisance, we were always losing her. We had a little dog too. We grew vegetables, my husband had a bit of an allotment. We were all doing that sort of thing. I used to look after the animals that lived in our road. During the raids they would be rushing all over the place.

But it was quite an exciting time. These two boys we had staying with us, we used to take them out dancing. The worst part of it was when we saw the fire over London. We used to get a lot of raids there. Hitler said he was going to burn London. We went up to Bedfordshire to see my sister in law for the weekend and when we were there, they were talking about the bombing. I said to my husband that perhaps we had better get home. We got to Charing Cross and I looked up and all you could see was fire all along the river. We were at Villiers Street I believe. There was a train in the station and I thought good, we will be able to get home now and they opened the door and said, 鈥淲e鈥檙e not moving, you won鈥檛 be able to get to Sidcup tonight!鈥� So we stayed in that train all night long. We did sleep a bit, everyone was very good and they all shared any food that they had. It was funny, but very frightening as well. We eventually got home about 6 o鈥檆lock in the morning and these two billets said 鈥淭hank goodness, we wondered where you got to!鈥�

My husband was in the Fire Service and we had a bell in the house, and as soon as there was a fire the bell went and he would have to go. He would sometimes be out all night.

My father was a Homeguard and they lived in Dale Street in Chatham. I used to get up to Chatham fairly well. I remember seeing a Messerschmitt and a Spitfire in a dogfight over our house. I fell pregnant for my first son and I had to give up work then. We were always doing something for the troops. My son is 62/63, he was born in 1942. My other son was born three years after the war. It wasn鈥檛 too bad expecting a baby during the war. The neighbours in Lincoln Road were very nice. All the firemen鈥檚 wives rallied round for you. They used to make me things for the baby.

I remember, I had a friend there who lived in the next road, and she used to ask if we wanted to go and have a cup of tea with her, when there was a raid. On one particular day, the siren went and she said 鈥淐ome on down the shelter鈥�. She asked her husband to get the tea-making stuff, and he came back with her best teapot. She said 鈥淥oh, I can鈥檛 use that, it might get damaged鈥�, so the poor chap had to go back across the garden and get an old one. As soon as a raid started she would often come round with her little dog and sit in our shelter. As my husband was a fireman, he said you must go down the shelter, so we always went there. They made it quite nice, quite pleasant really.

My son was born in Woolwich in a maternity hospital. I stayed in there for fortnight. I don鈥檛 think there was so much bombing then. We used to come down to Chatham to my mother鈥檚. There was a raid there and they shot a German plane down quite near to where my mother lived. There was a lady there who said she was going to the cemetery, because this chap they shot down was a friend of my son. He had 鈥渆xchanged鈥� with her son before the war. This boy used to go and see this lady. She was so upset. She went to the cemetery regularly, which I thought was rather nice. After all they were some mother鈥檚 son, weren鈥檛 they?

We did come down to Chatham on VE Day and we celebrated there. We went to the Town Hall in Chatham for a dance. It was all lit up, it was lovely and everyone was nice. My godmother was there and was thrilled to see us.

It was dreadful in Japan. The building of the railway over the River Kwai. I didn鈥檛 like the idea of the atomic bomb, I thought it was dreadful. But at the same time, there was terrible suffering amongst the prisoners of war, they looked thin and really were badly treated. It was a terrible way to do it (using the atom bomb), but it stopped all the killing then.

After the war, we had a fishmongers business in Gillingham. My husband also worked for Shorts Brothers in Rochester.

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