大象传媒

I was three when war started. In Silverwood in Kettering in Northamptonshire in 1941 I recall a platoon of Canadian solders marching down the road. The Sergeant was knocking on every door and placing men from his troop into the houses.

Kettering was never bombed as it was fairly small to be a target but German planes did fly over on their way to Coventry. Even though we weren鈥檛 in much danger my mother still insisted on putting me under the stairs whereas my father and sister decided to stay in the sitting room. Refugees were sent to live with us, although there was not really enough space us all. My aunt did take in two boys, but one of them (Billy S) was a terror as he had come from the rough side of London and kept trying to steal things. He was eventually replaced by another boy called Michel Haining who was a much better person, in fact he was such a nice person that he kept in contact with my aunt until her dying days. Life was crowded and our teachers had to find temporary classrooms for us all (church halls etc). Another of my great memories was being given my gas mask and I remember wearing it in a black box. It had a round flat part like a pig鈥檚 nose, and when you breathed out it came out by the side of your face making a sound like a horse snorting. Younger children鈥檚 masks had Mickey Mouse ears that the older children were jealous of. Babies had a capsule that they could be completely enclosed in. Luckily the children weren't obliged to wear their masks all the time but were required to take them to school.

Another memory I have is when a German plane was shot down. It crashed in the pleasure park, and we did not know much about it, but it has always been a curiosity of mine as to why any of the bullets didn鈥檛 hit us. On D-day all the American planes that were at bases to the east of our town took off in the direction of Germany and there were so many that you could not see the sky between the different squadrons. Finally on V-Day (the end of the war) all the women made up food that was placed on tables along the streets where everyone went wild in celebration of the defeat of Germany.

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