大象传媒

I was born in 1938 and was seven or eight years old when the war began. I went to school in Lelant [Cornwall]. Sometimes, on the way to school, the sirens would go off to warn us that the German planes were about. We all had to take our gas masks, which we always had with us, and we had to go down and lie in a ditch under the trees. That was so if anything did happen, they鈥檇 know where to find all the children.

There was a bomb dropped on the gasworks in St Ives. We were living in Lelant so were away from it.

Lelant was open to attack because it was by the sea. Down at the beach, all available pieces of wood were used to put across to form a barrier to stop people landing on the beach.

There were Americans stationed at Carbis Bay and we had Italian prisoners-of-war there at the big hotel. The prisoners worked on the farms. They used to make toys out of wood to give to the children. My dad worked on a farm and used to get friendly with them. They would give him toys for us, for example cotton reels, birds carved out of pieces of wood. We were not brought up to fear them because they worked on the farm with our families and friends.

The Americans used to give a lovely Christmas party at the Guildhall. They gave us gum and sweets.

The blackouts. We used to have black sheets for the windows. You weren鈥檛 allowed to have a bit of light showing.

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