大象传媒

Our thanks go to the pupils of Hugh Sexey School in Blackford, Somerset, who collected and prepared these stories with the help of local war veterans. The authors are credited at the end of each story.

Mrs J Gamlin鈥檚 War Story

On May 11th 1940 a bomb landed in Mrs Gamlin鈥檚 road, Killing a girl and her father. Mrs Gamlin鈥檚 father was a special constable and had to go and deal with the deaths and the bomb. Next day Mrs Gamlin was evacuated to the Quantocks. It was ten years before she was allowed to go back home. When she got back she saw that most of the buildings had been bombed or destroyed.
Lots of young children were evacuated to the countryside because of V1 and V2 bombs being dropped. Mrs Gamlin made lots of new friends her best friend was called Patsy. During her stay at the Quantocks she had to grow up very quickly.
Later she was moved to Devon where she met up with her mum and younger brother. Her dad then joined the army and was sent to India. For her the saddest thing was hearing that people she was close to were dead. At the end of the war she became a red-cross nurse.
If Mrs Gamlin had the opportunity to go through the experience again she would because it helped her to grow up properly.

By Thomas Haggerty, Jamie Fitzpatrick and Sophie Watkins.

My World War II
Story

Mr M. Manners was 12-16 years old when the war started. The Germans had made their way into France and were firing V2 rockets over the Atlantic Ocean to England. These rockets where A.Hitler鈥檚 secret weapon. They flew over 200miles and 50miles into the air at 3x the speed of sound and came down at 4x the speed of sound so when it came down no one could here it.

Mr Manners was eating his breakfast in the morning when a bomb (V2 rocket) blew up down his street, and his house exploded. Mr Manners was lying unconscious in an armchair. When he woke up he found is aunt dead and his mum severely injured and died a few days later. He found out a few minutes later he had bit of shrapnel in and all over his body. Wooden beams holding up the house had fallen all around trapping his aunt. Mr Manners was rushed to hospital later the same day. After that he went to live with a relative on a farm in the countryside.

By Ja鈥檓ahl McMurran, Rosie Shepard and Laura Wilment.

The Memories of Mrs Searle, an Evacuee

Mrs Searle鈥檚 memory consists of, how she felt, what she did and the friendships she made during the war. She was age 12 when the war started and age 17 when the war finished.
As a young girl, age 12 at a London train station, Mrs Searle boarded the train and felt as if she was going on the journey to oblivion. She looked back one last time at her family and then sank back into her seat. She felt bewildered and with her luggage label like luggage being packaged off, to an unknown place. But then she looked out of the window and saw the countryside fly passed her and she knew she would never see anything like this again. The rest of the journey went by like a lightning flash as she talked to her friends from her school.
When she arrived she thought that all the people there would be thick and dirty, but she soon found out that she was wrong. As she sat in the chair waiting for somebody to take her home, she felt the worst feeling she would ever have in her life, and she remembered her family and realised that she taken them all for granted. Then finally two women came and took her to a new home.
Her new life meant that she had to go to a new school, meet new people and make new friends, which was a lot easier than she thought. The first time she was evacuated only lasted six weeks, as everybody in Sussex was calling the war phoney, because all the action was happening in France, so she went back to London. The journey back to London felt a lot slower than the journey from London
As the first time she new everybody from her school, but this time she only new one or two people. She鈥檇 phoned her mum from her billet so when she arrived she saw her mum straight away and went home.
A couple of months after she鈥檇 arrived back home, Mrs Searle now at the age of 13 was playing in the garden with her sister, when she heard a noise, it sounded like an engine, but then it stopped. She had heard rumours that when you heard this noise it meant that there was a bomb coming. Luckily the bomb landed around ten streets away from her house. So the next thing she knew she was transported back to Sussex.
When she stepped off the train she saw her hosts immediately, so she went home with them. Her best friend, who funnily enough was a teacher, made her stay in Sussex a lot easier whose name was Gladys Traunter. She was kind to the evacuees as though they were her own children. Mrs Searle (age 13) had always counted on her family for help, but in Sussex she went to Miss Traunter for advice or help. Mrs Searle always wanted to find out more about where she lived in Sussex.
Some of the friends Mrs Searle made during the war where lifelong, like Gladys Traunter who only died last year (2003). Mrs Searle now in her early 70鈥檚 reckons that her life wouldn鈥檛 so interesting or stimulating without the war and is glad she was part of it.

Mr. J. Morris鈥檚 War Story.

Mr. J. Morris lived in Slough in Buckinghamshire. He was born in 1926 and was 13 years old when World War 2 started. Because of this his school was moved and was shared with a girls school; but the boys went to school in the morning and the girls went in the afternoon. The only friends he made were at school because he only went out for a bit and when he did he didn鈥檛 go very far.
His farther worked at the Bristol Railway Station and his mother worked in an ammunition factory. At night it was the worst time because; one, he had to be back before dark; two, he had to go down to the air raid shelter every night and; three, always getting disturbed sleep. At this hard time policeman who lived next door helped him the most.
Where Mr. Morris lived it wasn鈥檛 badly affected, but he wishes he could have done more to help. For a week Mr. Morris would get 50g of butter, 100g of margarine and lard, 200g of sugar, 50g of tealeaves, 1 egg, 100g of bacon with the rind still on it, and all this was just for one person. In those times there was no fast food whatsoever and there were no restaurants. But on the good side they got 100g of sweets.
But now he runs a happy social life and is happily married. He still keeps things to remind him of that time but says it is time to move on plus if he could go through it again then he would say no!

By Jessica Bull and Jacob Puddy.

World War 2 Story

Terry Sheppard鈥檚 Story

Terry Sheppard was only 4 when the war started and is now 69. His father left his mother before he was born. During the war Terry lived near the middle of Bristol. Terry was not old enough to understand that the war was dangerous and thought it was just an exciting adventure.
He lived in a house with his mother, his aunt and his grandmother. Because of the food shortage not only did they grow food in their gardens they also turned the parks into vegetable plots. Even though he lived in the middle of Bristol he was never evacuated. To get distracted from all of the bombing Terry would read or go to sleep. In his spare time he would swap shrapnel or build dens in bombed out houses.
One day when he was play in a bombed theatre he was running up a corridor and swung open a door. The next thing he knew he was swinging out in mid-air 25ft above the ground with nothing around him but thin air. Luckily a friend was there to pull him up.
One night when the air raid siren went off he rushed to the bomb shelter. Once there, the bombs started to hail down. The bombing was really bad so he slowly opened the door ran to the next closest shelter, the bombing was just as bad there. He then ran to try and get to the next shelter but when they arrived there there was a mass of fire around it. Once he was in and sitting down calmly his cousin鈥檚 came rushing in with blood all over them, because their house was bombed. He can still remember the smell of burning and the sound of sirens.
During the war his mother made friends with an Italian prisoner of war who would sometimes come round for a cup of tea. The hardest part of the war for Terry was understanding his mother and other adult鈥檚 feelings.
One day when Terry was walking down the street with his friends, when a German fighter plane came down low and started to fire at them. For fun Terry and his friends weaved in and out of the shop doors. Terry collected bomb fins and American Badges.
On his first holiday after the war had finished he saw English soldier鈥檚 coming back on the train. One of them gave him some gifts, they included a Japanese officer鈥檚 hat, some Japanese money and some Russian money.

By Sam Jones, Jessica Boobyer and Marisha Huxtable.

From Mrs M.Macarthur

Mrs Macarthur lived in North London. She was born in 1938 at the beginning of the war.
One of her first memories was when she was very small, her father wrapped her up in a blanket and took her in their air raid shelter where she can remember looking up and seeing the crossed lights and the Germans鈥� planes.
Her family grew fruit in the garden and her mother made homemade jam. She also kept rabbits and often had rabbit stew. She remembers that the Government decided to give everyone orange juice so they received enough vitamin C. They used parachute materials for clothes and in her family it was the children who got all of the new clothes because they were still growing up.
When the war started, like most families, they used to listen to the radio and she can still remember Winston Churchill鈥檚 voice. One of the jobs she had to do during the war was picking up the droppings of the horses on the horse and carts from the rag and bone man, the Milkman etc鈥�
Even though she lived in London her mother wouldn鈥檛 let her and her sister be evacuated. She thinks that she got closer to her family, because it made her realise how much they cared about her.
On a train an American soldier offered her and the other children chewing gum.
She was five when the war ended and her parents took her to the centre of London to see Buckingham Palace. There were a lot of brightly coloured ribbons hanging from the buildings, she thought it was great. In her street there was a huge party to celebrate their victory.
Her father saw the first atomic bomb. Her uncle was conscripted aged 40 to the Navy sending Morse Code, when he came back he gave her a paper bag containing a banana which she had never saw before.
If she had the choice she would defiantly not go through World War II again.

By Maddy Rigby and Harry Hole

I 1939 world War II broke out, and Mrs J. Morris rationing was the main event Some foods were rationed and people had a certain amount of food each week.
Mrs Morris was two when the war started and she lived in Ealing, Middlesex. Her dad was called up early in the war. Her mum was working early in the morning til late at night, so she had to get all the rations herself.
50g of tea was issued per person every week. The same was issued for butter. 100g was given for margarine and lard, also cheese. 200g of sugar was issued per person every week. One egg was given every week, and when the war got very bad, it was one egg per fortnight. As for meat, it was one shilling and one tupence, and two pennys of it was corned beef. Bread was not rationed until 1943/1944. Instead of rationing there was a points system, the points system was like was like another form of money. With points you could buy beans, spam, jam, salmon, cornflakes, shredded wheat, sweets and biscuits.
Clothing was rationed two years into the war. Rationing went on for a long time after the war. Rationing ended in 1954 the year Mrs Morris got married. Radio broadcasts sent out food news, plus recipes. Very few people knew what a banana or a lemon was, and oranges were a luxury along with spam. In the war Mrs Morris鈥檚 favourite food was cheese.
Medicines weren鈥檛 rationed, neither were cigarettes or beer or spirits, but they were sold 鈥淯nder the counter鈥�.
Mrs Morris鈥檚 registration number was BCC249/2.

By Alex Blake and Hannah Close

Mr J Smith was born in April 1937 and was 3 years old when the War started and 9 years old when the War finished. He was not evacuated. He lived in Filton, Bristol, very close to the aeroplane factory, in which his dad worked. It was also a sweet spot for the Gerries to bomb.
Jeff鈥檚 main memory from the War in 1940 was when he was about 3 half and had just heard a loud noise he knew that the German planes had diesel engines and that they were loud, but it was much louder than a diesel engine. So he looked out of the blackened window and saw a huge barrage balloon on fire.
A barrage balloon is like a sort of blimp; t hat was about a 1000 feat high, it was tethered to the ground, with a weight on wheels and a very strong wire.
Woman used to control the balloon and the balloons used to make the German planes, go up over them so it was harder to bomb the factory. Mr J Smith said, 鈥淭he Women were running as fast as cheetahs.鈥� He found it hilarious but the Women did not.

Mr Smith told us that in the War they had points if the shot an enemy aircraft down.
A barrage balloon was worth a third of a point,
An enemy plane was worth 1 whole point.

Interviewing Mr Jeff Smith
Interviewed by James Hall and Jacob Slade

Mrs J Gamlin

On May 11th 1941 a bomb landed in Mrs Gamlin鈥檚 road, killing a girl and her father. Mrs Gamlin鈥檚 father was a special constable and had to go and deal with the bomb and the deaths. Next day Mrs Gamlin was evacuated to the Quantocks. It was six years before the bombing stopped and she was allowed to go back home. When she got back home she saw that most of the buildings had been bombed and destroyed.
Lots of young children were evacuated to the countryside because of V1 and V2 bombs being dropped. Mrs Gamlin made lots of new friends whilst she was at the Quantocks. Her best friend was called Patsy. Later she was moved to Devon where she met up with her mother and her little brother. Her dad then joined the army

We are interviewing Mr Tom Flack aged 90.
Mr Flack was twenty-five years old when world II started. Mr Flack found it hard travelling for 7 weeks on a troop ship and staying away from his family.

During the war he drove trucks to Chittagong to be repaired. They flew without parachute then put them on rafts. The Ghurkhas and the Indian army helped the English.Mr Flack joined an army which was called the Lost army at the age of 26.

He got Malaria from mosquito bites, He got it 3 times.
He drank rice wine to cure it.

In the Jungle they took guard of the vehicles because there were jackals, and sometimes they used to find them sleeping in the trucks. Mr Flack owned a Ghurkha knife .You had to cut off a goat鈥檚 head with one swipe to have permission to use it.

The knives handle made out of human bone. Men dressed up as woman for fun, because they missed their wives and their families so much.
Mr Flack owned 5 medals and miniature photos and had a long sword hidden in a walking stick, which he took from a Japanese truck.

Mr Flack had lived in bamboo huts that were blown down by typhoons.
He was also arrested for one night because they thought he was a German balloonist.

One of his friends brought a monkey with him which he treasured a lot
If Mr Flack had a choice he would not go through it again.

By Liam Wookey, Stacey Pope and Charlotte Weight

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