大象传媒

I was 6 years old when war was declared, and I remember well being frightened when we heard the announcement on the wireless, as it was then called.

Being fitted later with a gas mask and having gas mask drill at school and having to carry it everywhere. We were fitted at the Old Hundred House in Stourbridge Road which is now private housing. It was also used as a British Canteen where you could buy very cheap meals.

Also, I remember well the British wounded in their sky blue uniforms coming to Barnsley Hall to be treated.

The coming of the Yanks as we called them to All Saints Camp, which later became All Saints Hospital, caused great excitement. I used to listen with interest to the gossip about local girls and women who, in the vernacular of the day, were 鈥渃arrying on with them鈥�.

We kids used to go to the Guard Room where the entrance to the Princess of Wales entrance now is, to beg comics and chocolate 鈥� I didn鈥檛 like gum!The comics I liked best were all about film stars and I cut them out for a Scrap Book.

A bomb destroyed two cottages just out of Burcot and we children all went on our bikes to collect shrapnell. I can鈥檛 remember if anyone was killed.

My father was in what was called a Reserved occupation and worked at the B.S.A at Redditch and went every day on his Bike.

I was just too old for a Green Ration Book for the under 7鈥檚 (sic) has (sic) I was nearly 7 in 1939 and can鈥檛 remember having an Orange or Banana at all during the War Years and was violently sick after eating my first orange.

All in all we children had terrific freedom to roam and played happily in the old Grandstand at the Rovers Ground in All Saints Road and there were so many green fields so close. Unfortunately most of these are now covered with housing.

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