大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Dunstable At War Team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

My family moved here in 1937 when I was 6 years old, so I鈥檝e lived in Dunstable for most of my life. We moved into a house in First Avenue that had just been built and at that time we could look out straight across open fields towards the Downs.

I went to a small private school in Great Northern Road, which had about 30 pupils and taught the basics of English, maths and elementary French. The highlight of summer was playing croquet on the lawn at the back of the house; we had great fun playing little contests and tournaments.

We were on holiday in Norfolk when war was declared. For most of the war, officers were billeted in the few empty houses that had not yet been sold in First Avenue and ATS girls were billeted in portable huts built in the fields opposite our house. My father was too old to join the forces but he had been in the civil service and was given a reserved occupation in various parts of the country, including Reading and Southampton, preparing for D Day. We didn鈥檛 see very much of him during that time.

A few months after war was declared some evacuees came to live with us from the east end of London. We had a brother and sister, John and Sylvia aged 13 and 8. Sylvia was terribly homesick and missed her mother, although John being just that much older took it in his stride. They stayed with us for about 14 months. Their mother came to visit them as often as she could. She was very concerned about Sylvia as she was so very homesick. When John turned 14 their mother took them back home to London. After that my Auntie and her daughter who also lived in London, came to stay with us for the rest of the war until it was safe for them to return home.

An air-rail shelter was built in Bennett鈥檚 Recreation ground, which ran along the back of our garden. The first time we had an air raid during the night, we ran to this shelter and stayed there for about an hour. We did this about 3 times but we soon got extremely tied of that, and from then on we would go and sit in the large cupboard under our stairs. Later we joined forces with a neighbouring family and the two families would share one of the two cupboards in each others houses, which helped to pass the time!

We were all delighted when VE day came and there were many celebrations. However, a great friend of ours had a husband who was a POW of the Japanese and we had still had no news of him at all. Our concerns were for him and for other POWS. We had a very big celebration for VJ day. I went with my family and stood in front of the old town hall with lots of other people, happily waving flags. The Mayor and councillors all came out and cheered along with us.

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