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When the war first started, the sirens were tested regularly. This gave the public a chance to have many practise runs and rush to the nearest shelter. Everyone always took this experience seriously, because it was not known if it might have been a real air raid.

Apart from shelters in the home, they were erected in almost every street, shop, office and factory, so that wherever you were, you could easily reach one. No one was denied entrance and, in fact, it was not unusual to find yourself and friends taken into a private home shelter, if the siren perhaps sounded on your way to and from school. (No church bells were rung during the war — they were only to be rung in the event of an invasion). My primary school shelter was in the basement of the school, and many of my school lessons were held in the shelter. Gas mask drill and air raid drill was carried out many times during the day — class by class, with no running and in single file. The school secretary would always bring the register to the shelter to check our names and see if we were all accounted for.

There were very few air raids during the first part of the war, but they soon became more frequent. At first these were quite light, with perhaps just one or two aeroplanes and no bombing. They could either be at night or day. No one seemed very concerned, until the first bombs fell, and people were killed. We then all became more worried over the situation. During the day, it was fun to watch the many dogfights between aircraft.

When the night bombing raids first started over Plymouth, my parents and I would keep looking over towards Jennycliff, where from our house we could see the pylons at Fort Stamford. There were many of these pylons there during the war and five of them had small red lights lit on the top at night. If these lights went out, we knew the German planes were heading in our direction, and so we would just quietly go to the shelter.

On March 20th 1941, the heaviest blitz on Plymouth started. The ‘pathfinder’ aeroplanes first circled the city and dropped many flares to light up the city, and to make a pathway for the wave after wave of planes that came over from the continent. These flares stayed glowing for quite a long period. Thousands and thousands of incendiary bombs were dropped, and the centre of Plymouth burnt fiercely. (The word incendiary means the intentional setting fire to property). After the fires, the huge number of bomber planes arrived, dropping their loads of bombs to destroy the buildings. Many shops, offices and private houses were totally demolished, and the shops and offices were eventually re-housed elsewhere in the city. For instance, Dingles shops were scattered around Mutley Plain and Mannamead, and my school uniform shop was at Charlton House at Mannamead. It seemed that life just went on, and we were all determined that we would carry on as normally as it was possible.

The air raids were extremely frightening. The smell of the burning was everywhere, and the noise from the planes (Heinkles and Dorniers mostly), gunfire, bombs, fire engines and ambulance etc, was quite deafening. Each aeroplane would drop their bombs — this was called a ‘stick’ of bombs, and if one was heard coming in your direction, you knew for certain there would be more to follow from that particular plane. If bombs were screaming down towards you, it was a terrifying experience. Everyone in the shelter would catch hold hands tightly, duck down, shake like a leaf, almost stop breathing, and pray that you would all stay alive. After the onslaught, everybody would slowly sit up, and be aware that, yes, we were still there. These heavy raids would continue for hours, with one batch of planes returning to the continent, whilst another load could be heard coming towards Plymouth.

When at last the all clear sounded, people would wearily climb out of the shelters, look towards the direction of Plymouth City Centre, where the smoke and a huge red glow from the burning buildings could be seen in the sky. It was very likely that after a heavy raid, on returning to the house, there would be no gas, water or electricity, as the relevant pipes would have been damaged. Most households would keep water in their baths, or buckets, to make sure they did not run out.

As children, we always hoped that our school would be bombed, but unfortunately, my school was never hit, although many schools were destroyed. A scheme was devised called school sharing, and my Laira Green school was shared with Hyde Park. This meant both schools alternately using the undamaged one week in the morning, and the following week during the afternoon.

School dinners were commenced during the war. Nothing was cooked on the premises, and all food arrived in huge metal containers. The school meals van would arrive mid-morning, and pupils, usually boys, were nominated on a rota basis to help carry the containers.

Free school milk was also delivered in small one-third-of-a-pint size bottles, with cardboard tops. Every child was made to drink one bottle, whether or not you liked milk! School dinners were normally only taken by pupils whose mothers were involved in some form of ‘war’ work. Most mothers were always at home, and cooked the main meal at midday. Unless schools were ‘shared’, the normal lunch period was from 12.00-2.00pm.

As most houses did not have bathrooms, and as water was often in short supply, portable showers arrived quite frequently at school and were erected in the playground. These showers were mainly to be used only by pupils who really needed them, but most children opted to have a shower every time, as this meant missing lessons. (I don’t think the teachers minded this, as they found they had some time to themselves). The shower obviously took a long time, and towels were provided. Imagine the siren sounding in the middle of a shower! It could have happened, as the siren often sounded at an inappropriate moment.

There was so much disruption to everyday life, but from my 8-year-old point of view, everything seemed normal and worked quite well. Life was different and certainly exciting — never knowing just what would happen next.

It was interesting to see the bomb disposal men arrive on their lorry to defuse an unexploded bomb — we all kept a good distance whilst they worked on the bomb. These men were extremely brave, and a wave and a hearty cheer could be heard along their route with the ‘safe’ bomb aboard, with its large fin sticking out from the back of the lorry.

On the main road at Laira where I lived many people in the early evening boarded lorries and were taken out to the country past Plympton to spend the night in the fields, arriving back in the morning, very tired and probably cold. Most people were tired by day through lack of sleep, but carried on as normal during the day. In class at school the teacher could often be heard shouting ‘sit up and stay awake — you are no exception’!

The sad side of the war was death. Many fathers or brothers either were killed or injured. Some of my friends at school were affected in this way — this was apart from the casualties after an air-raid. Nobody liked the sight of a telegram boy arriving at a house — this quite often contained bad news. Not many private houses were on the telephone, so the telegram boy became a familiar sight cycling around Plymouth.

Not many families escaped without death or injury. During one air-raid an unexploded bomb landed in the garden next door to our house. The whole street was evacuated from the area until the bomb was made safe, and taken away. And so it was at 3.00am I found myself on the back of a lorry being transported to Embankment Road Methodist Church, Prince Rock. The WVS ladies were in attendance to dole out the soup, tea, buns etc, together with pillows and blankets. The only place to sleep being on the floor! This meant a day off school while arrangements to stay with relatives could be organised. In my case, I went with my family to my aunt at Efford, who took in fourteen people to sleep on her floors, together with their ration books.

At eight years old, I had seen German air crew bailing out from their planes, after having being shot down, and I had also been the target for German machine guns. I was walking home from school lunchtime with other friends, when we heard coming from behind us the noise of aeroplane. From its particular sound, we all knew that it was a German plane, coming towards us very low in the sky. As we had been disciplined in the drill for machine gun fire, we all scattered into the nearest gutter. The bullets bounced along the centre of Beverly Road, Laira, and unfortunately, no-one was hurt — only terribly scared. The black swastika sign could be seen on the side of the plane as it flew off.

My father grew almost all our vegetables in our large black garden. Meat was very scarce, so meatless stew was always available, night or day, in a large saucepan on the side of our continuous coal fire. This was added to at intervals. On the opposite side of the fire sat a rather huge black kettle with instant boiling water.

Our sideboard was usually quite full of tinned foods. This was always purchased when anything became available in the shops, on ration. Tinned salmon and crawfish were always abundant.

There were very few toys for children available in shops. Most factory units were used to manufacture war equipment — shells, bombs etc. Any steel, for instance gates and railings, were just taken from properties for use in factories.

One of our main games as children was collecting shrapnel. (Shrapnel was the coating of steel from an exploded shell). This was eagerly collected and exchanged on a system of a cold piece of shrapnel being worth less than a hot or warm piece. This shrapnel was usually collected after a heavy bombing raid on the way walking to school. (We always walked to school, as not many people even owned a car). At 8.15am perhaps an air raid would not have long finished, and there was much shrapnel to be collected.

Everything was scarce during the war, but as children, we seemed to enjoy ourselves immensely. Life was always exciting and very friendly.

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