大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Age Concern, Dorchester on behalf of Mr David Callaway and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Callaway fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

鈥淚 was born at the Army Hospital in Bovington, Dorset in August 1939. We lived in army barracks 鈥� a wooden house 鈥� at Bovington, just off King George V Road where T E Lawrence was killed. Then we moved to Andover Green, Bovington. There were soldiers billeted in the house next door. When the sirens went off, mother didn鈥檛 think it was going to be too bad so she put a blanket over the table and put the irons on either side, to hold the blanket down, and we hid under there. If it was a bad raid, the soldiers from next door came and carried us down some steps to the shelter. We sat on two benches either side. There were about 12-15 people in the shelter. We used to see the searchlights from Warmwell Airfield when there were raids.

Because of the ration books we could never understand why our father stopped taking sugar in his tea 鈥� it was so that we could have our sweets. The way we ate was different in those days 鈥� nothing was safe in the fields. Anything that was edible was moved 鈥� swedes, turnips, kale tops, rabbits. We used to rear rabbits and we had a few hens. When they didn鈥檛 lay they were eaten.

Dad went off with the 7th Tank Regiment and we just accepted it because we were a military family.鈥�

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