大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Peacehaven Library on behalf of Mrs Plaine (previously known as Pamala Strong) and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Plaine fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was 5 years old on September the 8th the year war was declared when I attended Middle Street School in Brighton. Like everyone else we had to have our ID cards on us at all times, mine was attached to me with a safety pin. I also had a cardboard box with my gas mask, but because I was not under 5 years old I wasn鈥檛 allowed the Mickey Mouse mask, so I cried!
My first air raid shelter I was taken to was across the street when I was at nursery. We had to go down a wooden staircase, of which the entrance was in the pavement. It was very uncomfortable down there, only little benches at the sides to sit on, not very big at all. There were some portable loos that we could use and one small heater but generally the shelter was damp, smelly and cold! If I was lucky then the caretaker would bring along a little bottle of milk to the shelter for the children in the class to drink whilst we waited.
A couple of years later most of the children had been evacuated to Yorkshire, but I stayed with my mum as she would not let me go. This time we went to an air raid shelter underneath the stage of the Hippodrome theatre in Brighton. Following this they had two air raid shelters built in our school playground. However this time if anybody ever needed the toilet they would have to run very quickly out of the shelter to the cloakrooms!! It was all pretty grim really but the teacher encouraged us to sing and read poems to lighten our spirits.

The air raids that happened during the night time were much worse for me. I remember I used to lie still hearing the bangs and crashes overhead wondering if my house was going to be next. At home our air raid shelter was in the fireplace with my mum and my own heads right in the chimney area. Most nights we would sleep there to save us having to go up and down to bed each night. My mum and I also made sure we took our bird and dog with us too. During these air raids the droning of the planes really affected me, being at night it was awful. During the day I could forget about it but when it was night, images of war would come back.

During one particular air raid I nearly got killed. It was at East Croydon train station and my mum and I had gone to visit my aunt. There was an air raid siren that went off, but before we had a chance to get to a proper shelter we saw a German plane. The plane came down low on the station platform and started machine gunning all the way down the platform and along the train too. Then all I remember is a big man pushed me hard to the floor to protect me. He shielded me with his body whilst the gunfire came down. He yelled with pain and rolled over when the gunfire had stopped as he had been shot several times in the leg. That gentleman saved my life that day as I鈥檓 sure if he had not protected me I would have been shot too.

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