大象传媒

These stories were submitted to the People's War site by Emma Hart at the AGC Museum in Winchester, on behalf of Mrs Joan Eaton, and have been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Eaton fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Trains along our local line were still steam in those days. We used to worry at night, because the driver had to open the firebox, and the glow could be seen from above. Everyone was always worried that we would be bombed. I recall having to get out and lay flat on the railway line once, when there was an air raid warning. I had managed to get hold of a beautiful white rubber mac, and I really didn't want to lie down and get it dirty.

When we travelled by train, men were usually crammed in, standing up, and the women travelled seated on the luggage racks. We didn't know when, if at all, the next train would appear, so everyone would pile on when it came into the station. Often the train didn't quite make it to its' destination, if the line had been bombed out, and it would pull into a railway siding, and we would have to get out and leg it from there.

When I was working at the bank in Ilford, there were air raids all the time. One time, I was really cold in the office, so I walked over to the radiators to get warm. They were gas radiators, I recall. Suddenly the whole of the back wall of the bank collapsed, but I had no idea at the time, as I hadn't heard a thing. A bomb had dropped and I was very close to its centre, so I heard nothing! When I got home that night, my nylons just peeled off my leg in shreds.

On Friday nights, we opened late til 5pm, to allow teachers and people like that who couldn't get their wages during normal banking hours to come in and pick them up. We had an agreement with a bank across the road to go over at 3pm, and get some extra notes to help to pay the salaries. One Friday, it was my turn, and I was walking across the road. Next to the other bank was a lovely shop which sold Canadian clothing. We could never afford them then of course, what with rationing. Anyway, I was looking in the shop window and suddenly I realised that I could reach out and touch the clothing, as the glass had gone. I had heard what sounded like an express train going past seconds earlier, but paid it no attention. As I was stood there thinking, I realised that someone was asking me if I was ok, and people were running around screaming. A V2 rocket had landed in the street, about 100 yards away. and had blown out all of the windows. I hadn't even noticed. When I got home that night, all of my clothes were shredded to pieces, especially my nylons and my underwear!

We had an Anderson Shelter in the war. You bought them in pieces, but the problem was that there werent many men around to help with building them. You were supposed to dig a hole 6 to 8 feet deep to put them in, but most were about 5 ft deep. If there were 3 of you in a family, you received 3 sections of the shelter. Each family had to provide heir own door and furniture for the shelter, plus steps down to the entrance. We had one in our garden.

At the end of the streets in Essex, where I lived, there were posts about 3 and a half feeth igh, with a square of timber on the top. The top was painted yellow with a special paint which changed colour if there was a gas atatck. In the event of an attack, Air Raid wardens were supposed to come out with fooball rattles to warn everyone that there was a gas attack, and to remind them to look at the paint on these posts to see if it had changed colour and they should be putting on their gas masks.

We used to buy things like nylons on the black market. Although they cost more, you could pay for them with money, as you didn't need to use your meagre ration coupons.

Worley Barracks was near to where we lived. If there was a big air raid on, they would run the Ak-Ak guns up and down the streets on a trailer. All the shop windows were taped up so the rumbling of the Ak Ak guns didnt shatter them. We knew it was a serious air raid if the guns were out. We could also tell the difference between our planes and the german ones, by the different sounds of their engines. German aeroplanes had a pulsing kind of sound.

I can recall quite clearly the first time I saw a Doodlebug too. We weren't scared, just absolutely thunderstruck by them! They made a steady motorbike type noise - we just looked at them, and then carried on with what we were doing. When the engine noise stopped, we always looked up to see where they were going, but rarely ran from them. V2 rockets were much scarier, because you never heard them, and so you never knew where they were going, there was no warning sound.

On Saturdays, I trained to become part of the WRENS. Part of this training involved planning what to do if the worst situation happened and the Germans invaded England, like ways of resisting to keep oneself safe. We were taught to wear heeled shoes if the German's invaded, so that we could scrape them down the shins of the German Soldiers, and to push our fingers into their eyes or up their noses, or to pull their helmets up so that the strap choked them, in case they tried to harm us. We were determined that if they invaded, they wouldnt get us.

When the Americans came to Essex, none of us really knew what to expect! Booze here was much cheaper than in the USA, so usually every morning, there were lots of very drunk Americans lying in the shop doorways! Most of the Americans in Essex where white Americans, but there were some black americans. They used to keep both groups seperate. There were often lots of fights at the base between white and black Americans - especially if a woman went out with a black american, there was usually hell to pay! The American Officers were beautifully behaved though, unlike the soldiers.

We were raising money in Essex for the Spitfire Fund, to buy a spitfire for the air force. Lots of people had home safes in those days, and we were very honest. One day, whilst I was still working at the bank, a lady came in to give 3 sovereigns to the Spitfire Fund. Now, at the bank, the over the counter value of a sovereign was 拢1, but at the jewellers you could get 拢3 for it. I told the lady this, but she said that it was dishonest, even though it meant she could give the Spitfire Fund 3 times as much, AND it wasnt dishonest! So all we could credit her was 拢3 in total.

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