大象传媒

THIS STORY WAS SUBMITTED BY WENDY YOUNG ON BEHALF OF MARGARET PRICE AND HAS BEEN ADDED TO THE WEBSITE WITH HER PERMISSION AND SHE FULLY UNDERSTANDS THE SITE'S TERMS AND CONDITIONS

During the war I lived in a bungalow in Alexander Rd Capel le Ferne with my two sons, Tony who was just over two and Simon who was 3 months old.My husband Charlie was in the R.A.F. serving in India.
The Nurse at the local clinic where I took the children gave the mothers a talk about
evacuation. We were told to take sufficient
clothes, food, and water,for the children
and she showed us the gas masks, there was
a special one for the babies, and a Mickey
Mouse mupset Simon.I told the nurse I didnt know how I was going to cope, but she assured me that where ever we were sent there would be someone to assist us. After all that we were never evacuated, which was laughable.
One day I saw soldiers criss crossing the fields with barbed wire, shortly after this I saw that Tony had crawled through the barbed was and was hooked up. We had a dreadful time getting him out.
The R.A.F. regiment put tents around the bungalows,there were also tents along the cliffs and down the roads.
By this time Simon was walking. I never saw much of the children because they were always around the men,they became part of the Regiment.On pay day they would line up with the men to receive 6d, and wearing tin helmets.
One day I heard a loud bang and quickly got the children into the passage way of the bungalow. An unexploded shell had landed near the bungalow, it went 10ft into the ground, a lorry load of soldiers came to dig it out, but they never filled in the hole.Tony went missing and I eventually found him lying on his stomach by the hole which was now full of water, fishing.
I complained to the Air Raid Warden and the Police but no one came so I decided to fill it in myself, fortunately a young Captain saw me struggling, and organised some soldiers to finish the job.
I will never forget the day when I was walking al;ong the cliffs with the children, when a Spitfire and a German plane flew low overhead firing at one another. I was petrified, thinking we would be killed, within moments they had gone, but to me it seemed like hours.

r.

a.
f. serving in India

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