大象传媒

鈥淭his story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by Rebekkah Abraham on behalf June Elkington-Housegol. The story has been added to the site with the author鈥檚 permission and she fully understands the terms and conditions.鈥�

I was 7 when war broke out. My Dad was in the Air Force, sent to South Africa and Italy. My Mum brought up me and my sister Pat who was 3 - we were only little girls. The war worsened. We had an air raid shelter in the garden where my Mum kept spare tins of food in case we got stuck down there. I particularly remember the tin opener for some reason! We called the air raid shelter 鈥榯he dugout鈥�. We鈥檇 go down in the middle of the night with blankets wrapped around us. I remember coughing in the cold and damp.

We also had a Morison鈥檚 shelter in the house where my sister sheltered under when she had Scarlet Fever.

A bomb had fallen very close to us, so my mother took my sister and me to Drinkstone, a small village in Suffolk. We went and stayed with my Aunt and her two girls. There was a well in the garden. One day my Mum went to get water and the winding wheel knocked off her wedding ring which fell down the well. A bomb fell pon my Grandmother鈥檚 house and we returned home.

The bombing worsened and my Mum took us and her sister and brother鈥檚 children to Wiltshire. Later we moved a third time to Bude in Cornwall. We stayed in a small cottage on the edge of a cliff. I remember once my mother went out to pour some water in the drain and a rat ran over her foot! We went to the local village school. The other children didn鈥檛 like us and bullied us, so some days we didn鈥檛 want to go to school.

We went back to my Grandmother鈥檚 house. There we would hide under the table when bombs fell. One night 鈥楯erry鈥� (what we called the Germans!) came over in their planes. We ran into a doorway with my Mum and her friend who was an ARP 鈥� I remember the tin hat. A bomb fell across the road. My Mum didn鈥檛 speak 鈥� we thought she was dead but it was just the shock. The bomb had fallen on a house where a friend of my Mum lived. She had two sons (twins) and a daughter 鈥� Jean Bolton. Later it transpired that one of the sons had lain on top of the daughter and she had been saved, but sadly he had died.

As a child I remember looking out of the window and seeing the sky and docks around Woolwich and Greenwich lit up red and orange by the falling bombs.

When we returned home to Iverdale Road in Peckham Rye, our railings and gates had been removed to be recycled as ammunition. The house opposite had been bombed and consequently removed. In its place water tanks were built which we played around as kids. Peckham Rye Park had been used as a small Prisoner of War Camp, and I remember seeing the Italian POWs in their brown uniforms along the Cheltenham Road (near where the horses were shoed) where they were exercised.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.