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I was nearly ten years old at the start of the war and lived in Newbury Park, Ilford, on the north eastern outskirts of London, so we were away from the main target, but the sound of a plane at night still reminds me of the drone of the German bombers. When they were overhead the sky was filled with searchlights trying to trap them, and there was continuous noise from the anti-aircraft guns nearby, and the pinging of the shrapnel landing on the road. The following morning we used to go out to see how many pieces we could collect. Our next-door neighbours had an Anderson shelter in the garden, whereas we had a Morrison indoors. It took up a lot of room, being the size of a double bed, so had to be used as the table. I slept in it during the worst raids, but don’t remember using the wire mesh at the sides. We did have some bombs landing nearby, and the broken window glass made a lot of mess.

One bomb had particularly tragic consequences. A few doors down the road lived a family with a little girl of about four who used to stand neatly dressed at her gate waving us off to school in the morning. Their house was hit one night, she and her father were killed and her mother badly injured, dying some months later in hospital.

Early in the war my grandmother’s house in Southgate was badly damaged by a landmine in the next door garden, but luckily they were sheltering in the garage and the blast went in the other direction and they weren’t injured. The house was severely damaged and had to be demolished, being rebuilt after the war, though if it had happened later in the war it would probably have been repaired. They moved to a house near Sutton, so later also experienced the V1 attacks.

However, life had to go on as usual. I can remember having great fun playing round the big concrete tank traps on a vacant plot of land nearby, and used to cycle two miles to school every day, or catch a bus to go to my music lessons, or to Guides, if there was no Alarm on. I was very disappointed that we were not allowed to go to camp. When my friends and I went out on cycle rides it was very easy to get lost as all the signposts had been removed, and there were unending convoys of military vehicles on the roads.

My father worked in London, and my mother went back to work also in London, so I was a latchkey child. Food, of course, was very restricted, but I never went hungry. My family never used the Black Market and food was so precious that I was never allowed to risk learning to cook, and the Domestic Science Lab at school was shut. Instead of sweets, on my way home from school I used to buy a bag of chocolaty cake sprinkles, and thought they tasted lovely! Occasionally the message quickly went round that a consignment of oranges had arrived in the shops and everybody dropped everything and rushed to join the queue — I think my parents always gave me theirs. My mother was very good at needlework and I learnt from her. We used up every scrap of material and remade old clothes. Silk parachutes were very useful, though they could only be dyed into pastel colours. I still find it difficult to dispose of unwanted items in case they may come in useful at a later date.

The family with three children who lived next door to us had moved to Porthcurno in Cornwall, as their father worked for Cable and Wireless, and towards the end of the war I used to go to spend holidays with them. Thinking back I am really surprised that my parents allowed me (aged fourteen) to travel alone by train from London to Penzance in wartime. I can remember travelling in trains so crowded with passengers sitting on suitcases in the corridors that no-one could pass along, and one time was very embarrassed to be the only girl sitting in a carriage full of soldiers. All names had been removed from the stations, and at night it was so dark without any lights that when the train stopped we had to be sure there was actually a platform there before stepping out. One time I arrived back in London in the middle of an air-raid, which was scary.

When I was staying with my friends in Porthcurno at Christmas 1944, it was arranged that I should stay on there because of all the V1s and V2s round London, so I went to the Penzance school for a term. I spent a very happy time there with a group of local teenagers playing on the lovely beach where the entrance had been cleared of barbed wire, and on the cliffs round the disused Minack theatre. The film Love Story, starring Margaret Lockwood and Stewart Granger, was made there and my friends became extras, but I wasn't there at the time.

My mother sent me my first pair of slacks, in grey, which fitted perfectly, and I was very proud of them. I was really impressed that my friend knew how to make a Yorkshire pudding, as I had never been able to try any cooking. Dances and ENSA concerts were held in the hall there, and I can remember the Gordon Highlanders and at another time Italian prisoners-of-war occupying the Training School buildings there. I had no idea that a secret tunnel had been cut into the cliffs to protect the undersea cables going out to all parts of the world and that it was such a strategically important place, and it is very interesting to visit the museum there now. I don’t know if my parents ever knew that Porthcurno was a potential target, or if it was because the war was drawing to a close and it was obviously safer than London.

There was an exceptionally heavy fall of snow for Cornwall while I was there, and we couldn’t get to school for several days, much to our delight, as the coach couldn’t navigate a hairpin bend.

I returned home to my own school before VE Day, and there was a huge bonfire down the road as part of the celebrations. It was wonderful to see all the lights on again.

My whole family was really lucky as we came through the war without any casualties, although we all lived around London. My father, having served in the First World War, was too old for the forces. My mother’s youngest brother was the only one young enough and served in Italy, while my cousins and I were just too young.

I was about the same age as Anne Frank, and when I later read her story it brought it home to me how very fortunate I had been in my war.

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