大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Sarah Housden of Norfolk Adult Education鈥檚 reminiscence team on behalf of Gary Griffiths-Jones and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was on holiday in Germany when the war started, and had to get out quickly. As a skiing enthusiast I went to Europe every year and had friends who were German and Austrian 鈥� because they were my friends I never really hated them even though we were at war with them. I was fluent in German and French.

I had got married the week that war broke out. I had my first baby in 1940 and so didn鈥檛 have to do war work, but I decided to work for the War Office where I was in the pool of people doing things like decoding and dealing with messages. At one stage, Winston Churchill鈥檚 secretary was on maternity leave, and because I was a linguist I was asked to take her place.

It was grim living in London during the Blitz, but the only injury I received was being hit in the face by shrapnel, which had to be stitched up. I was up there the night that Chelsea old church was bombed. It was a beautiful old church. I never went into the public shelters unless I had to. They were not necessarily all that safe 鈥� one fell down and killed 40 people. The worst case was where a bomb fell down an air raid shelter and killed many people. Our house was not damaged by bombing but nearby one were. Nonetheless, I would describe the atmosphere in London as quite happy. There was a spirit of 鈥淒amn them, we鈥檒l win!鈥�. I鈥檓 sure people were scared, but they overcame this. In some ways there was a lovely feeling in London all through the war as everyone wanted to help everyone else.

There were no signposts anywhere and we still had a car. I got totally lost on one journey and stopped to ask a man by the side of the road the way. He refused to tell me, saying that he wasn鈥檛 going to help a spy, so I had to drive on until I found a policeman. With no signposts and no lights it was not easy driving.

We used to call the evacuees at Paddington Station 鈥榩ink tickets鈥� because they had pink labels on their backs saying who they were. Some settled down away from London, but many came back after a year or two. I remember one little boy who went to the countryside for the first time pointing to a cow and asking the person next to him: 鈥淲hat鈥檚 that thing called?鈥�

My son was three or four years old when he had his first banana. A friend had given it to me for him. I pulled it out of my pocket to give it to him and he ran away because he thought it was a gun!

We were told that we should have a child to replace ourselves, one to replace our husband, and one for the country for all the people who鈥檇 died during the war.

Things cheered up when the Americans came into the war. Some of those young Americans were pretty hot stuff and would say to the girls: 鈥淚f you鈥檙e nice to me I鈥檒l get you some nylon stockings鈥�. They didn鈥檛 say this to me though because they knew I was married. They really did get up to all sorts of mischief.

If you went out to tea with someone you always took something to eat or drink. I remember one person coming to visit and bringing tea leaves and sugar. There was a lot of Black Market trading going on.

When the war finished I went to Trafalgar Square. It was packed full of cheering people, and someone got hold of some fireworks. People were paddling in the fountain and singing Vera Lynn songs.

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