大象传媒

I was nine when the war began and I was at school in Whitburn. The thing I can remember the most is the air-raids. I lived about half a mile from Whitburn Colliery. When there was an air-raid the siren would go off and if you were at school you would go into the air-raid shelter there, and after school time you would still use the school shelters. When we were in the shelters sometimes everybody would sing songs to keep the spirits up. If the air-raid was after midnight you were excused from school the next day. Ofcourse us kids wanted the day off school so we actually wanted the air-raids to occur after midnight. Later on, a lot of people had what we called an 鈥淎nderson shelter鈥�, at the bottom of their garden, made out of corrugated sheet. But we did not have one of those: what we had was a cupboard under the stairs, and we used to go and sleep in there when there was an air-raid. We also had a 鈥渢able shelter鈥�, which was a large metal table with four legs and you could go and sleep under there.

I had a brother who was in the Royal Air Force and he was killed in the war, in 1940. He actually joined up before the war started. I remember his funeral very well, and he had his name put up on the cenotaph in Whitburn.

I was only young and did not really think about what was going on too much 鈥� it is only later that you realise the significance of these things. Near the school there was an army-training camp and we used to see the soldiers, and we knew they were going out to fight but as a child I did not think about it too much. We were just getting on with our lives.

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