´óÏó´«Ã½

I was 16 when war broke out and living at home with my parents and two younger sisters, named above, in Warnham, 3½ miles from Horsham. I remember September 3rd 1939 and sitting in our front porch crying my eyes out. I thought we might all be killed.

War time had some happy times, some sad and others frightening. There were Polish troops stationed in Warnham Court and we got to know many of them and had very happy evenings with them in our home, playing cards and sharing whatever we had. Later in the war there were both German and Italian prisoners of war in camps outside of the village. These were also made welcome when allowed to walk free.

Every night our bombers went over the village on their way to bomb Germany and German planes passed over on their way to bomb London. One November night they dropped a string of bombs in the village, fortunately only breaking windows. They left two unexploded bombs in the field at the bottom of our garden, one of which was dug up and exploded by the Bomb Squad. The second was too deep and is still there. I notified Horsham Council of this several years ago when they were building in the area. One German plane was shot down in a field not far from us one night. The Doodlebugs were very frightening when their engines cut out overhead.

During the September dogfight I can remember having to take shelter when cycling home from work in the evening. I remember cycling home in the dark one night and, as we were not allowed to show any lights, had a pinhole light in my lamp. I ran into a parked car, went over the handlebars and finished up very bruised with a cut chin.

The most amusing thing was that my mother had lived in London during the first World War and was terrified of the air raids and directly the siren went we all had to go into the cupboard under the stairs. We had two Blue Persian cats at the time and they got to know the warning and all clear. No matter where they were when the warning went they chased into the cupboard and came out when they heard the all clear.

This story was added to the People's War website by CSV Volunteer Pat Latham on behalf of Joan Harper. Joan fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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