大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by the 大象传媒 Learning Centre on behalf of Ruby Lynn with his permission.
The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was born in 1927. I was 12 when war broke out and living in Woodharbour Bay, Jamaica.

My first memory of the war isn鈥檛 that we couldn鈥檛 light a lamp at night or make any bright light. We had to get a saucer with some water and a little bit of coconut oil and the lid off a tin of polish and bore a hole in it and push some material that would burn without any trouble through the hole to make a little light. And we couldn鈥檛 put the light on the table we had to put it underneath. We lived with our parents and grandparents and people when they are old they become very nervous and when they heard about Hitler they were frightened so they wouldn鈥檛 put the light on the table.

As children when we used to be outside playing sometimes till seven or eight o鈥檆lock at night but when our family heard about Hitler and the war we weren鈥檛 allowed to play outside after dark, we had to play inside. That鈥檚 what I remember.

When we were sent to the shop before the war we were able to take a torch with us to see our way but in the war we couldn鈥檛 do that because our parents were afraid and every minute they kept saying 鈥淗itler is coming and Hitler is going to drop a bomb鈥� and they even made a joke in a song, 鈥淎 banana a day will keep Hitler away鈥�.

When the war went on for a long time I remember we couldn鈥檛 get many things and we couldn鈥檛 send away our goods such as bananas and the imports couldn鈥檛 come to us because there were armed convoys at sea so it was dangerous. Everybody was afraid and saying you have to be careful. The Jamaicans used to gather lot of old iron and send it away to make ammunition. And our grandparents were really scared because they had never experienced anything like the war and you are very timid when you hear about the bombs and things.

The husband that I was later married, he wanted to go to the war. At that time they were thinking of conscripting but he was only 17 and his mother wouldn鈥檛 let him go so he didn鈥檛 go.

There were shortages of tinned things and we couldn鈥檛 get bacon much. We couldn鈥檛 get a lot of material for clothing either. It never really troubled the children like us but it troubled our parents.

As children we weren鈥檛 really scared because we had never seen a war before and we didn鈥檛 really understand.

When the end of the war came there were marches and I remember people shouting "Hitler is out, kill the bugger".

At school we had a maypole and sang "Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves" and "Hail to Jamaica the Island of Spring,". It was lovely.

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