大象传媒

I was 11 years old when the war broke out. Every night I would go under the stairs with my mother. My father was an air raid warden and so was out at night. Soon we had to leave the house completely as the bombing got so bad.

One night, a land mine dropped at few roads away from our house and did not explode. So we had to move to my mum鈥檚 sister鈥檚 house just outside the area that had been evacuated. The bomb was dismantled after a few days and we were able to go back home.

I remember flying bombs in 1944. One glorious summer day, I remember a family birthday party with aunts and uncles. A doodlebug came down and hit the next brick shelter to ours in the road. The door hit my face. My mother said 鈥淲e all have been lucky today鈥� to our neighbour, who my mother usually did not get on with. He offered her some whiskey, which she drank. It brought them together again.

I was evacuated to Egham, Surrey. I went to school one day and there were buses waiting. We had been told to bring a suitcase and clothes to school. We were very excited about going on the bus and wondered where we were going. I stayed together with one of my friends at a house with a pig and got blamed for opening the stile door and letting the pig escape. There were anti aircraft guns at the end of the road. After a week, we went home as my father felt it was no safer in that area than at our own home.

My father had an allotment on the sport field at the back of our house. One evening, I was there and saw a squadron of planes. I thought they were ours, but they were not and dropped their bombs on Croydon Airport. I rushed back home to my bedroom to get a better view. I was excited. It seems strange now, but things appear different through the eyes of a child.

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