大象传媒

First came the blackout - a frightening darkness everywhere - no street lights, no traffic lights, no headlamps on the cars and dark curtains over the windows of the house. If there was a chink of light showing there was a shout from the Air Raid Warden: 鈥淧ut out that light鈥�.

Then there were the barrage balloons - great bloated things high in the sky going higher if there was to be an air raid, when we would hear the wailing of the air raid siren. As the planes started going over we thought we could distinguish between the drone of the enemy planes and the drone of ours. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 one of ours鈥� we would say not knowing for certain. To begin with we would down tools at the office and go into the basement until the 鈥渁ll clear鈥� sounded, but the disruption to work became impossible and so we sat it out and waited for the barrage balloons to come down into their normal position.

I was living in Bristol when the war started. The centre of the town was badly bombed, and so was the airport at Filton when some of the air raid shelters were hit with many casualties. We didn鈥檛 have an air raid shelter but would go into the cupboard under the stairs saying 鈥淭hat鈥檚 one of ours鈥� at regular intervals. I remember crouching there one night with my mother shaking with fear, my sister asleep and my grandmother praying. My father was upstairs carrying on with developing photographs (photography was his hobby) and air raids couldn鈥檛 drag him away.

I would go to work each morning with a nagging fear that someone would be missing, although they never were - from our office at any rate. I was a Civil Servant in what was then the Ministry of Labour. Married women weren鈥檛 employed at that time, and when one girl got married we were sworn to secrecy.

Everyone was issued with a gas mask, just in case, and we all had a ration book because of food rationing. I don鈥檛 think anyone went hungry although things were in short supply, like 2 ozs of butter and cheese a week, a tiny portion of meat, and one egg each. If you saw a queue at the grocers or greengrocers you automatically joined it almost before you asked what the people were queuing for. Dried egg comes to mind - it was quite useful for baking but was uninteresting for scrambled egg. Our cousins in Canada must have thought we were starving because they sent us very generous food parcels which were much appreciated.

When we were married in 1941 my husband was an Officer in the Royal Corps of Signals . He was stationed at home then, and until our baby was born I followed him round the country. I think the families we were billeted with felt that looking after us was their contribution to the war effort. We were made very welcome and still keep in touch with a family we stayed with in Lincolnshirre. We saw less of the war than our families in South Wales and Bristol who were suffering from air raids most nights. My husband鈥檚 grandmother was killed in a direct hit on her house in Cardiff.

In 1944 my husband鈥檚 regiment was posted to India. Looking back on that picture of myself waving him good-bye with our baby in my arms I wonder how I could bear the separation. Well, I had to bear it because there was nothing I could do about it. I had the baby to care for and I wasn鈥檛 the only one in that situation. I was lucky enough to be living

I lived with my parents-in-law in Penarth, near Cardiff, and they were a great comfort. My husband was in India about eighteen months and spent quite a lot of that time in a hospital in the hills with jaundice. The war ended before the regiment went to Burma. When I was expecting him home I was surprised to get a phone call from my Mother urging me to get my hair done. I told her it was too soon for that, but she insisted, and I discovered afterwards that my husband had written to her saying that he was being flown home and that she mustn鈥檛 tell me in case I shouldn鈥檛 worry. I had, of course, expected him to travel home the same way that he had travelled out to India - by sea. It was a joyful homecoming and I have wondered since what my two-year-old son thought about this strange man suddenly appearing in his life. He says he can鈥檛 remember!

The Service men from the United States caused quite a stir. They were very smart, well-off and a great favourite with the ladies. Some used to say they were 鈥渙verpaid, over sexed and over here鈥�. I always found them very good company. I never knew a GI bride (an English girl who married an American soldier) and have often wondered how they fared over in the States.

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