大象传媒

Recorded at Surrey History Centre
by John Whittaker

These are my wartime memories living in Hounslow. I was born in 1937 in Isleworth, Middx. I lived with my parents in Hounslow, my father worked at
Heston Airport on Spitfires and Typhoons. I attended the local infant school when I was 4 years old during the Battle of Britain.

I walked to school, a journey of three miles with my friends and my girl friend Patsy. As we walked to school everyday, we could see the dog
fights in the sky, with the German Bombers dropping their bombs
and the vapour trails of the aicraft high above me. We would collect shrapnel from the ground from the bombs that fell every day.

At school we would listen out for sirens, and immediately go to the shelters, which happened most days.

After school we would walk home in the dark and above us we would still see the fighting. At home in the evening we would sit around the coal fire and huddle up with the window blinds pulled down, have a small meal as everyone's food was rationed. The only light we had was a gas mantle. After tea we would listen to the radio and get ready to go down to the Anderson shelter in the garden for the night. It was very dark and damp and we all huddled in with sandwiches for the night. We would hear the bombers come overhead and the incendiaries would blow out the windows of the house and set fire to the fences close to where we were. This carried on for weeks.

Shortly after the bombing we were told that we were to be evacuated north.

I was only 4 or 5 years old at the time but my memories are very vivid of the events which occurred. We took one small brown suitcase with us on the day we left and went to Euston Station. When we arrived it was very crowded with evacuees and service personel going north.

The train was full and we managed to squeeze aboard into a compartment full of soldiers and sailors. There were no seats so I was put on a sailor's lap for the journey northwards.

My father had a great aunt living in Carlisle who we had not seen before, and we were going there away from London and the bombs. The train was very slow and stopped at every station. When we arrived at Crewe my father hurried from the train to a cafeteria to get us some food and drink and luckily he made it back in the nick of time before the train moved out. We continued northwards to Carlisle.

The train was full of service people, men and women, huddled together on this journey. They were singing war songs and playing cards - and it was like one big party. We eventually arrived in Carlisle in the evening and made our way to my father's aunt in a small back street where she lived. The house was also small. My great aunt was Scottish and she asked for our ration books as soon as we arrived so she could buy the food for us.

We settled in the house and I went exploring around Carlisle. I found two rivers close by and in one of the rivers there were cows drinking and also there was a young boy there alone who I befriended. He only had one arm, but I never found out how he lost his arm. We became great friends.

We stayed in Carlisle for some time until the bombing eased off in London, and then we went back to Hounslow for the rest of the War.

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