大象传媒

I was fifteen years and eight months old when world war two was declared. I lived at Peverell in Plymouth and I was ill. My mother, Gertrude Churchward, called Dr Olaf Lander. He came and diagnosed laryngitis. While he was with me, Churchill spoke on the radio and said war was declared on Germany. Dr Lander said "You are my last peace-time patient and my first war-time patient".

The war started quietly at first then came the blitz. It was very frightening. We had a big cellar under our house. We went into the cellar every night. My mother, Gertrude Churchward, had put a cushion on the floor of a low wall cupboard for our dog "Joffre" to sleep in for safety. We also had a cat "Neno" and a budgie "Joey". Each night when we had our meal our dog, who was lying on the mat, would suddenly sit up listening then he would go into his cupboard. We all had a bag with food, drink and our treasures at the ready. Mum would say "Come on then, down to the cellar, the dog's heard the planes, Adolf's on his way". Sure enough, within minutes of going the siren sounded. We would sit in the cellar listening to the bombs raining down on us. The night our house was badly damaged, a shelter had a direct hit nearby. I screamed when we heard everything tumbling down above us. When the all clear sounded we went back up to find everything smashed, windows and doors blown out, parts of floors and walls gone and the dog and cat gone. They shot out when the blast came but thankfully returned when all went quiet. My father Henry and Jim my cousin started clearing up. Mum made a cup of tea on a primus. No electricity.

It was a very scary time. Brother Harry wounded three times, Royal Marines, brother Charles, Army, cut off in Malta. I went into munitions at seventeen and a half years old. Mum and I would go into the city centre to read the notices put up listing the people killed. We lost many friends. We saw the double decker buses, several full up with mourners for the funerals from the blitz. Our city was a mass of ruins. Very sad. Fires every night, but everyone kept cheerful. Good old British spirit. V.E. day was wonderful. We went dancing on the Hoe.

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