大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War Site by Helen Churchill for Three Counties Action, on behalf of Antony Pearson, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

My first memories of the war (I was 2 years old) were my father and my uncles digging a Anderson Shelter in the back garden. I was bored so I stick my head through a galvanised watering can, which cut me very badly and the fire brigade was called. They sawed it off my head.

After this my brother was born in March 1939. We carried on living in London and one day my mother had to go shopping and the all clear hadn鈥檛 been given. We all went to the Co-op and as we were about to go in, the police man was there and said to my mother 鈥渨here do you think you are going?鈥� and she said 鈥淚鈥檓 going shopping in there鈥� and he said 鈥渘o you鈥檙e not, you鈥檙e going in that shelter over there鈥�. Then there was an enormous bang, and when we came out, the policeman said 鈥渨here were you going?鈥� and Mum said 鈥渢o the Co-op鈥� and as she said this, she realised the Co-op had disappeared.

Another memory I have, is we were all in the shelter, and some one came in and I heard them say 鈥淧oor Mrs Green has bought it鈥� I thought it literally meant she had bought something, but it was 40 years later when I realised that in fact she had died.

I can remember sleeping on the underground with my brother and mother on the platforms as she felt safer there than in the garden shelter.

We used to walk back from the underground to where we lived and we passed a house, with only one wall standing, and there were wall lights on that wall still burning, and they were gas mantles and the rest of the house had been destroyed. Mum said 鈥淚 must find out where they got their gas mantles from鈥�.
We finally moved to Reading in 1940 and a bomb fell on the middle of Reading. So mum took us to see it and a man standing near by said 鈥淚t鈥檚 those bloody Londoners bought their war with them鈥� to which my mother hit him with her handbag and was arrested by a police man.

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