大象传媒

'This story was submitted to the people's war website by Matt from Swavesey Village College on behalf of Ken Sweeney and has been added to this site with his permission. Ken Sweeney fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was evacuated from East London, in 1939 at the age of 6. My only possessions were a packed lunch and a gas mask, in a box tied around my neck with my string, with my name on it. I travelled with two of my older brothers and my older sister. One of my older brothers, Danny and I were evacuated to Sussex.

When we first arrived in Sussex, we were taken to a woman whom we'd never met, in Burgess Hill. We had been allocated to the lady before we had even got there. The day after we had arrived we were moved to the lady's neighbours, the Mitchell's, as the lady could not cope with us, but she kept our rations.

The Mitchell's had two children, a son and a daughter. The son went off to join the army while we were there. We were sent to a small school just down the road and none of the local children really liked us. They used to argue with us all the time, but we still loved the place. The only bad thing about it was, every Sunday morning I had to get up and clean the brasses. There was a lot.

Around September 1940, on a Sunday morning, I was standing in a street in Burgess Hill, when a shadow fell across the street. As I looked up I could see a German bomber skimming the rooftops, with a Spitfire right on it's tail. I later found out that the bomber had been shot down by the spitfire just as it was about to land.

My brother Danny and my sister Pat moved back to London shortly after that. Danny joined the army and went out to fight for his country. After three years in Sussex I moved back to London. We lived in a top floor flat, and every night we had to move to a bomb shelter.

Just opposite the flat was a park where they sent up barrage balloons, which were sent up to intercept the German planes, and to stop them from reaching the centre of London.
Once the bombing had ended, the Germans sent down Doodlebugs. All of the children used to stand outside our bomb shelter, and watched the rocket on the Doodlebug tail go out; we also used to wait for the whistling to stop, we then knew we better get into the shelter quick.

My dad was a fire watcher along the wharfs, one night he was out when he saw a Doodlebug falling away from him. A gust of wind caught the Doodlebug and it flew towards him. But then another gust of wind caught it and it went in the direction of Tower Bridge.

Once the war had ended I joined the RAOC, end whilst serving in the forces I met my future wife. We decided to go back to Burgess Hill; when we were there, we found Mrs Mitchell and she remembered me! As I was the one who climbed her pear tree.

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