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(This story was submitted to the People's War website by a volunteer from Three Counties Action on behalf of Enid Armitage and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Armitage fully understand the sites terms and conditions).

I was 12 when the war broke out but at 10 years old I had rheumatic fever and diphtheria, as I’d always been ill. War broke out on the Sunday in 1939 and shortly after I was pushed up to the main station in Stevenage to see all the evacuated children coming off the train with their gas masks. Even today I can remember the site, standing on that bridge and watching them disembark.

I don’t remember too much about the war as we weren’t bombed in Stevenage but I remember watching the Doodlebugs going over and praying that the engines wouldn’t stop as that would be it if they came down!

My dad thought we would be bombed and have to go into a shelter so he sunk a shed in the bottom of the garden I don’t know how he did it — but I can remember him digging this big hole. Luckily we never had to use it but I can remember going in it to see what it was like.

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