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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Rebecca Hood of the People's War Team in Wales on behalf of Derek Symonds and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was born in 1936 …. When the war broke out I was only three…but I can remember standing on my front doorstep watching the German bombers allegedly going to bomb either Cardiff or Swansea and there were literally hundreds of them with their engines droning like they used to do. And I stood there mesmerised watching how many there were…that was until my mother came and grabbed hold of me and dragged me inside the house. I didn’t see any bombing but apparently what happened here in Abergavenny…I used to go to an infant school and I was home for my dinner and a German plane had been hit and was dislodging its bombs before it crashed and it dislodged an incendiary bomb at a place called Llanwenna. I was having my dinner and I can remember the house rocking.

With food we managed somehow…a lot of criticism comes in for the old dried egg…but I used to love the dried egg, it was quite versatile in its way like…and it was surprising what you could really do with it. Years and years later…certain things at that time were off limits and rationed….it was years later I saw my first banana….someone brought a banana to school and I didn’t know what it was.

On VE day all the streets had parties….ours had a tremendous effort…we had a big band playing and fireworks singing, everything, I vividly remember that.

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