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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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Life in colchester 1940-1942

by Mylandbaby

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Archive List > Childhood and Evacuation

Contributed by听
Mylandbaby
People in story:听
Mum, dad, grandma and the family
Location of story:听
Colchester
Background to story:听
Civilian
Article ID:听
A8789764
Contributed on:听
24 January 2006

My dad would have liked to have gone into the navy but was medically unfit to serve so he joined the homeguard unit attached to the factory where mum's sister worked. My grandma used to knit socks, in the round using four short knitting pins which had points at both ends, for people in the services. She was very good at turning the heels and grafting the toes. After work and mum and her sister trained as first aiders. One evening before Christmas on their way to class they cycled down the hill on Mile End Road listening to carol singers collecting at the front doors. Every group sung Silent Night and mum and her sister joined in as they cycled. They took part in an exercise down the High Street and did quite well with the first aid section, only to told that their ambulance driver had ignored the imaginary craters painted on the road and they would have ended up in one. The family were on a fire watching rota. Grandma and mum's sister did the first part of the evening and dad and mum did the second part of the night. This made sure that the family only had one sleepless night when they changed over. One night when they were changing over dad was watching a burning aircraft in the sky and he went and stood on the next door doorstep instead of own because of the effect of the light on his eyes. If the enemy aircraft on bombing raids were off to the Midlands they went to the left of the Mill Road house and if they were off to London they went to the right.

One day mum's sister and her friend were at work in the factory when the air raid warning went off. They went to the shelter because the planes were over head. A bomb fell on the factory destroying part of it. In the shelter they were thrown from one side of the shelter to the other ending up in each others arms. Another time mum was in the kitchen of the big house where she worked when she saw the gardener push her mistress to the ground and lay on top of her. A lone enemy aircraft had appeared low over the wood to the west and was firing at the railway line and the factories near North Station. Some horses were in a field near where Baker's Lane joins Bergholt Road and they were hurt by a bomb which fell neat them.

Meanwhile my father had to change his job because it was not essential to the war effort and he became a civil servant in the Ministry of Labour. As well as firewatching and attending drill nights for his homeguard duties he grew vegetables in the back garden to supplement the families rations.

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