大象传媒

My name is Edna Cole. I was born on 22nd December 1932 and I was living in South Road, Newhaven, at the time. My first recollection of the war is fear, and I think that carried all the way through until the end because when war was declared, my sister and I were visiting a neighbour in South Road, and she panicked and it transmitted to us, me particularly, because I didn鈥檛 understand what all the fuss was about. She insisted that we went home quickly to our parents, because as she said, 鈥淲ar has been declared鈥�. Now, my only experience of war was a tug-of-war, and I couldn鈥檛 connect her fear with a load of men pulling a rope. It was a bit weird to me. We got home and my parents were obviously worried too. One look at their faces, they were filled with horror, and it transmitted, and I think I carried that memory with me right the way through the war.

We had some funny experiences too. We had an air-raid shelter built in our back garden. Dad and the neighbours spent a long time digging the hole and putting the corrugated iron up. All the soil that was dug out went on top of the corrugated iron and then it was concreted over, made it very secure. It was painted inside and pebble-dashed with sawdust to absorb the condensation, and there were bunk beds in that, and it was quite cosy in actual fact. My sister and I slept in that air-raid shelter for years. But every night we went to bed, and every time the air-raid warning sounded we went down in the little hole through the door into the air-raid shelter.

Well, one day we鈥檇 been out, something that mum had organised I think because she was the WVS centre organiser at that time, and we鈥檇 been out to some do or other that she鈥檇 organised. We were on the way home when the air-raid siren went, so mum made us hurry, and we went along the back lane between Meeching Road and South Road, and down into the garden into the air-raid shelter, and she said to us 鈥淵ou go in there and shut the door, and don鈥檛 open it till I come back. I鈥檒l go and call Dad鈥�. Dad was on shift work and he was in bed. So she went into the house and called him. While all this was going on, a friend ARP man came along the back lane, and he often popped into our house for a cup of tea. Well, he came down into our back garden and at that time there was an aeroplane coming over dropping bombs, and we, according to mum鈥檚 instructions, kept the air-raid shelter door shut, and we leaned against it so as it wouldn鈥檛 open and nobody could get in, and this poor ARP man hammered on the door, 鈥淟et me in, let me in鈥�. No, go away. We wouldn鈥檛 open the door and he ran down the garden, and we had a huge glass lean-to on the back of our house. He went through there to knock on the back door, and mother had locked the back door too so he couldn鈥檛 get in there and the poor man was racing up and down the garden, begging one or the other of us to let him visit. He stayed out there while all bombs were falling and that was absolutely terrifying and I don鈥檛 know what happened to him in the end. I think he must have gone away. Nobody would let him in. There were lots of incidents like that.

I can remember being absolutely terrified indoors at one time. Again my sister who was quite a lot older than me, joined the local ambulance service as soon as she was sixteen and so she was often out night times sitting around on an ambulance, and I was left at home by myself because mother would be off on her WVS duties, I was just scared stiff the whole time. Sometimes I would sit too scared to move. It was horrendous really. I was quite relieved when the end of the war came.

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