大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by Barbara Collins-Newing
and has been added to the website on behalf of Jean Howard,with her permission and she fully understands the site's terms and conditions".

MY WAR MEMORIES

Jean Howard

At 4 years old the word 鈥淲AR鈥� did not mean much to me at the time. I only know my/our lives changed dramatically.

I was born in Folkestone and my father was a fisherman who had a stall opposite what used to be the Ark Caf茅 at the harbour. A lady called 鈥楶oppy鈥� used to spoil me when my father went in there for a cup of tea My earliest memories of that time was when my mother took me and my younger brother to East Cliff Sands and on the way home left me to be brought home by my father while she pushed my brother home. I loved this as my father would put me in the basket on the front of his trade bike and pedal me home, often accompanied by the fish we would be eating for our tea.

I remember starting school at Mundella Primary School, particularly that we had to have a short sleep after dinner. lying on newspapers placed on the floor of the hall! I wasn鈥檛 there long when one day there was a strange sound, which we later learned was an air raid siren. Everyone panicked and mothers were rushing to pick up their children from school. I recall my mother arriving to collect me, very hot and bothered, with my young brother in her arms. I think this was a false alarm as I don鈥檛 remember anything happening. However, shortly after this my father had to give up the fish stall and went away. I later found out that he went to work in a factory making Spitfires. At one time he was in Northampton and later in Southampton at an address in Salisbury Road where I remember writing to him.

The war situation must have looked quite serious in Folkestone as we left to move in with my maternal grandparents., something that has always amazed me as Grandad was a Station Master at Farningham Road Station - not far from London. I later understood that my parents did not want me to be evacuated with the school to Wales.

Looking back I feel we were extremely lucky to stay alive during the war. Many people local to us there were killed and we always seemed to be going to the dug-out, night and day. The noise of the aircraft, bombs dropping and exploding and the whistling of shrapnel will always remain with me. I hated the dug-out. It was exactly that 鈥� a hole in the ground, partly supported by corrugated tin sheets. The hole we were lowered through was very small and I was always scared of getting stuck. This was probably because my grandmother was quite a large lady and grandad would go in first, being of slim build and would then pull grandma down while my mother pushed from the outside. We spent many nights there wrapped in blankets and hoping we would still have a house left standing in the morning.

At this time Farningham was quite a small village surrounded by farmland but a lot of dog fights took place overhead and many bombs were dropped on the fields. On more than one occasion pilots of both England and Germany were found wandering after having parachuted from their aircraft. One night there was a paraticularly bad attack. It actually started in the afternoon when we saw the English planes go over. Then came the Germans and battle began. We were rushed to the dug-out and didn鈥檛 come out till 8.00am the next morning. The scene that met us was horrific. How the station house escaped damage we shall never know but 100 yards away was an unexploded bomb, in the field opposite a German plane had come down and there were bits of plane and pilot all over the place. Someone picked up a nice leather boot only to find the leg still in it!

Later, and I am not sure how much later, Grandad was transferred to Bexley station 鈥� we were now 13 miles from London . I have many happy memories from there and made lots of friends. We had a huge garden with lawns, fruit trees and a vegetable plot. We were also able to keep chickens and I remember watching them hatch out in the greenhouse. The other thing I liked was the brick built bunker we had in the garden with a proper door at the entrance and wide benches inside on which to sleep. We also had an Anderson shelter in the dining room. This was like a large metal table with a built-in bed underneath. As soon as the siren sounded we all dived under the table and many a night was spent there. I remember keeping my hands over my ears because I did not like the noise. One night bits of the ceiling came down and crashed on the metal table top.

While we were at Bexley we made fairly regular trips to London to visit elderly relatives. On one occasion we were actually going up the stairs from the platform to the exit when the siren sounded and almost immediately a doodlebug could be heard. We had to lie down on the stairs and I was terrified of falling through the gap. Then the engine stopped. When this happened we knew it would come down quite close to us - it did and the noise was tremendous but luckily we were unhurt. There were many similar incidents culminating in the 鈥楤attle of Britain鈥�. We stood in the garden and could see London burning after the attack. Things seemed to quieten down a bit after this with only spasmodic raids.

Suddenly we were returning to Folkestone. Our house, which had been requisitioned for refugees, had been damaged but not beyond repair. I know we children stayed with a relative while our ceilings were renewed and the house redecorated.

On 25th May 1945 we had a V.E. day street party with jelly and ice-cream. It was all very exciting.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.