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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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Middlesex Memories

by csvdevon

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Contributed byÌý
csvdevon
People in story:Ìý
Josephine Ann Tapper
Location of story:Ìý
Enfield, Middlesex
Background to story:Ìý
Civilian
Article ID:Ìý
A8404850
Contributed on:Ìý
10 January 2006

This story has been written to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People's War site by CSV Storygatherer Coralie, on behalf of Philip John Tapper. The story, of his wife's memories, has been added to the site with his permission and Philip fully understands the terms and conditions of the site.

My wife, Josephine, was born in 1938 in Enfield, Middlesex. Around 1941 she remembers her father having the upright piano pulled away from the inside wall of the lounge to make space to shelter the family during an air-raid, and being taken from her bed wrapped in an eiderdown to be safely put in that space night after night. The German planes were seeking out Trent Park — home of the Enigma coding machine — and used to pass over the house on their way.

V1 and 2 rockets, or ‘Doodlebugs’ as she called them, were often seen passing overhead. One night a house down the road was demolished by one and the houses both sides were left standing, apart from broken windows. Doors and windows rattled in the area but no other damage. She can remember one incident quite clearly: seeing a doodlebug overhead whilst she was out playing on her little tricycle, and hearing its engine cut out, and somebody’s father gathering her and her bike up and running to a house. She was put into a Morrison shelter in the dining room, which quickly filled up with more children and adults. After the all clear the children went out to play again. She never knew where the rocket landed.

Her father used to grow his own vegetables in the back garden and he also had a few chickens, so food was not really in short supply. Pilchards and beetroot used to be eaten a lot she recalls. The tinned pilchards were Cornish. One afternoon she went with her mother on the bus to a greengrocer’s in Southgate because someone had said there were some oranges about, and they queued for about an hour for two oranges.

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