大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Liz Gray from Chineham Learning Centre and has been added to the website on behalf of Peter Keable with his permission and he fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

I was four years old when war broke out in 1939. I can just remember being evacuated with my mother and baby brother who would be a few months old. We lived in Hull, Yorkshire and were evacuated about forty miles away to a suburb or village near York. My mother never settled and after a few weeks we were all back in Hull.

My elder brother who would be about twelve was evacuated on his own to a small mining town, Thorne near Doncaster. My sister who was around ten years old was evacuated to another place but I seem to remember her returning to Hull after a short time. My father was too old to be called up for military duties and I remember him acting as an Air Raid Warden.

Being a general port as well as a fishing port , Hull was very badly bombed and I remember my Grandmother鈥檚 house being hit and completely destroyed whilst we were all in an air raid shelter only a few hundred yards away (no one was in the house). There were numerous occasions when the air raid sirens would sound and I would be lifted from my bed and carried to the air raid shelter where we could spend anything from 15 minutes to two or three hours waiting for the all clear.

Towards the end of the war I vaguely remember the attacks by the German pilotless bombers (I think they were called V bombers?) although I remember our slang word for them was 鈥渄oodlebugs鈥�.

I remember not being able to obtain bananas! Ration Books were all the vogue and so was the Black Market for food and clothes. Some American troops were based in Hull and I remember they had chocolate and gum with which they were quite generous. They also had silk stockings which were very popular with the young ladies.

Peter Keable 7th July 2005.

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