大象传媒

By Angela Vivian

I was 25 when the war broke out. On that September morning, my parents and I stood in our kitchen and listened to the wireless. The Prime Minister's voice - solemn and slow "... and therefore we are at war with Germany". I saw my mother's hands clench, my father's face was set. Away in the distance an air-raid warning sounded...

And then nothing happened during the following months, or it seemed so. My firm were evacuated to the safety of the country. Then in May 1940 we were moved back to London just in time as the bombing began. The Germans walked into Holland and Belgium. The war was coming nearer to England.

I remember standing in Princes Street by the Bank of England during my lunch hour and seeing the newspaper hoardings announcing that Paris had fallen to the Germans. It was on the 20th June. Shattering news. I felt cold inside. The enemy was getting closer. What had happened to the French resistance?

One day that summer my sister and I stood in our garden in Merstham and watched what seemed to be hundreds of German bombers on their way to bomb London. I will never forget - and sometimes I think I hear them still - the uneven throbbing hum of those enemy engines as they approached their target - probably the London Docks where our father was stationed.

They flew so close together, so ordered, so regimented, so German. Then up from Biggin Hill came a flurry of Spitfires and Hurricanes. We held our breath and caught the tail of the invaders. One bomber turned and fell and then another. Then a spitfire was hit, began spiralling downwards over the hill. Its parachute sprung away from it and we prayed the pilot landed safely and unhurt.

There were many battles around us that summer. If the pilots had been successful they would often fly over our house (we knew some of them) and give a Victory Roll. Exciting. We would breathe again. Perhaps give a prayer of thanks....

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