大象传媒

This story was submitted to the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by Wymondham Learning Centre on behalf of Alice and Walter Wadeand has been added to the site with their permission. The authors fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was living in Colney and working at Jarrolds in Norwich when I was called up in May 1942. I was 22. The night before I left Colney to join the ATS there was an air raid in Norwich and most of the roads were blocked by bombs. I got the bus to Earlham Fiveways and walked the rest of the way through the ruined streets. I was sent to Talavera ATS camp in Northampton for initial training and then for a couple of months to Twy-croes in Wales, and trained as a cook.

In October 1942 I married my fiance Walter Wade in Colney church. We were both in uniform. Our wedding cake was a two-layered plain cake covered with chocolate.

Walter was sent to Germany and I to London, were I was stationed mostly in Bromley and Beckenham. Walter and I managed to keep in touch by letter, and shared leave whenever we could. During one of Walter's leaves he visited me at Wormwood Scrubs (which was an Ak-Ak site at the time). My Sergeant told me to give him a good supper, but unfortunately rissoles - not his favourite dish - were on the menu that night.

Twycross was lovely, and there were no bombing raids there. London was a terrible place to be - there were constant raids. One night a group of ATS girls and I went to the cinema in Beckenham, and at the end of the film we walked out into an air-raid. We were terrified. Suddenly a Church minister in a dog-collar appeared on the street and said "Don't be afraid" - and after that, we weren't! We walked calmly back to base and weren't frightened at all. It was amazing, really.

On one occasion we were preparing a meal when an emergency drill was called and we were told to don our gas masks. We put on our masks and went on working - opening tinned sausages and putting them into huge pans ready for cooking. It was only after the masks were taken off that a terrible smell showed that the contents of one of my tins was rotten - and the whole pan of sausages had to be thrown out. My Sergeant was really cross -it was a terrible waste - she said that I should have realised they were bad - though I don't know how! At least it proved the gas masks were working.

In September 1943 I left the ATS and returned to Hill Farm at Colney. In February 1944 our first child, Raymond, was born.

Bombing raids were still going on in Norfolk, and mines were being dropped by parachute. While I was still in London, my brother, Harold and another man at Colney ran towards what they thought was a parachutist coming down over the farm, and were knocked off their feet by a landmine that exploded as it hit the ground. One night we watched an incendiary raid on Norwich, about a mile and a half away. The city looked just as if it were lit by a chandelier in the sky - and then we saw the red flames coming up from the ground.

Early one morning Milkmen ran up from the cowsheds shouting "Take cover! Take cover!" I heard a doodle-bug coming over. I got into a cubby hole which was used as a cupboard by the stove, clutching the baby. I heard the noise of the doodle-bug stop - the signal that it was about to hit. But there was no explosion. Hill Farm was spared and the bomb landed somewhere near Dereham or King's Lynn.

One afternoon I was outdoors with my son and my small niece when I saw three Spitfires flying towards us, one flying ahead with two others close behind. As I watched, the leading plane was cut in half by one of the two behind. Wreckage immediately began spiralling out of the sky towards us. I grabbed both the children and raced into the house for cover. The following plane crashed into a field next to a nearby cottage, and the pilot was later cut out of the wreckage but survived. The pilot of the leading plane, an RAF instructor, was killed.

Once my son and I joined the cowmen who were watching planes flying over and pointing them out. "That's one of ours," they declared, and "That's one of ours." Suddenly we were in the midst of a hail of bullets - the planes hadn't been "ours" at all. We all dived for cover between two big metal feed boxes, and miraculously no one was hit.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.