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At Benniworth Haven there is a big concrete shelter which both my son and I have been in, built into the hillside near the disused railway (as it is now). We think this was for the Home Guard if we were ever invaded.

Despite all our parents’ worries, the sad news we were always hearing like the death of a friend’s father who was killed when his car was bombed or shot at by an enemy plane. We had a happy childhood, we had a freedom the children of today do not have, we cycled for miles and knew all the surrounding villages.

We picked snowdrops at Burton, Primroses at Hackthorne, Violets at Welton and Riseholme. One day a friend and myself cycled to Minting to visit his relations. They gave us tea and I can still remember listening to his uncle playing the piano. He had never had a lesson and cycling back along Wragby Rd with all the telegraph poles along the roadside and getting into trouble when we got home.

The only people I was a little bit frightened of were the POW’s, why? I don’t know.

I remember the service funerals in Newport cemetery and some were enemy ones and the bugles were played.

I remember going into the air raid shelter at Eastgate School and sitting there until the all clear went. It smelt musty (or probably it was only a practice). At Secondary school we had to stand in the reinforced indoor playing area.

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