大象传媒

I was born in 1935 and lived at 94 Thames Drive, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, when the war started.
I remember being evacuated to live with cousins in Wood End, Warwickshire for a while. When a plane was shot down in a field, my cousins and I jumped on our bikes to go and have a look. We spent much time between fear and numbness, too young to really understand. But I have vivid memories of the way we lived: a solid fuel fire in the kitchen, 2 paraffin heaters to cook on, water from the well and a cesspit: my poor mother found it all very primitive and I got an abscess from contaminated well water when I was 4. There was fun, though: I remember playing with toy soldiers on the chest of a little boy I was in hospital with and my cousin Derek and I loved to play records such as Cigarettes, Whiskey and Wild Women!

But we had to move again when the house became too crowded with relatives.
My father worked as a scientific officer for the government, working on barrage balloons and airplane fuel. We moved to Epsom (near the gasometer he worked on), then Poole harbour (where I remember the island being set on fire so the Germans would think they had been successful in destroying the factory), then Shanklin, where Dad worked on the Pluto pipeline under the ocean.

Eventually, we returned home to Leigh.
Next door to us was a 鈥淕lass House鈥�, an army prison where soldiers who had gone AWOL or 鈥渨ent mad at the full moon鈥� were imprisoned. Mum was told off for talking to them over the barbed wire.

I loved the soldiers who were billeted with us: they would help bathe my baby brother, take me to the pictures, play with me and make toy airplanes which they hung from my bedroom ceiling with wires. Colonel Laverty, of Kohima Box fame (he commanded the West Kent regiment in Burma and helped to bring the war to a close by eliminating the last of the Japanese), was billeted with us with his wife and child. A young batman was very embarrassed when he brought tea to their room one morning and found them still in bed! My Mum, Doris Williams, had to take over this duty!
We knew something was happening when, in 1943, soldiers started to burn equipment in the garden: my father salvaged a pair of boots. We saw V I s over the estuary. Then, one day, we saw a build up of traffic in the road and on the Thames estuary: it was a fake D Day. All our soldiers went and I found it very traumatic. Where are they now? I think they were Canadians: they called me Blondie even though I am dark-haired. I used to ask them: 鈥淕ot any gum, chum?鈥� and once received foreign coins instead! I would love to know if any of them are still alive and long to hear from them.

My father, Dr Frank Williams, joined the US army towards the end of the war to inspect the bombed factories of Germany and see if they were safe. I remember sewing pips to his Major鈥檚 greatcoat. He brought me back some wooden toys which he had found on bomb sites. He was tied by the Official Secrets Act and could not talk about his involvement in the war. But I think he was asked to work on the atom bomb and refused: he was a very moral man. He was decorated and died aged 100.

To supplement our diet, we kept chickens and ducks. Mum did not realise you have to clip their wings and they often escaped from the back yard to the Glass House next door where we had to look for them in the long grass. The ducks were more friendly: they came when we whistled and I used to think they had a smile on their bills! We tried to raise ducklings, putting them in a box with a hot water bottle: we were really surprised to find them in the morning piled 10 deep away from its warmth! We also had an allotment on the Belton Hills where we grew sugar beet.
When I was 7, I used to go and fetch cod liver oil and orange juice from the clinic and was once really upset when I broke the bottles: a passing lady comforted me and encouraged me to go back for more! But I also remember eating the baby鈥檚 bananas and giving his milk to the dog! I really missed the Maltesers we had before the war...

I was often afraid and notices everywhere told us not to pick anything up in the streets in case it was explosive. There were concrete blocks all along the sea front and we had an air raid shelter in the garden as well as a Morrison shelter in the dining room.
But I never saw air raids, though I saw a bombed house in Dynevor Gardens: the whole of the side was missing and the nearby pillar box. There were only 5 bombs dropped on Leigh. I never lost my fear of the air raid sirens, though, and found it really dreadful that they should be used after the war for fire alarms.

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