大象传媒

I used to work at a Gas Mask Factory with my sister Peg in a small hut on the Slough Trading Estate. To start with there were only four of us, and over time we became a large factory called P.B. and Cow Limited on the Bath Road.

I married the day after War was declared to a Royal Horse Guard at Clewer Church Windsor I had wanted to get married at the Baptist Church Windsor but owing to new rules in wartime, because I lived in Clewer, I was not allowed. It did upset my dear Mother as I was brought up as a Baptist. My Sister Peg was married a month after me to a Scots Guard, called Duncan, at Clewer Church.

Four years later when Peg was expecting their fist baby she had a letter from the War Office to say that her husband was 鈥渕issing presumed killed鈥�.

At the time the Germans allowed prisoners one quick radio call. So Duncan put out a message to anyone listening 鈥減lease let my wife, Peg, who lives at 4 St Andrews Crescent, Clewer know that I am a Prisoner of War鈥�.

A young man (to whom we are eternally grateful) heard Duncan鈥檚 message and wrote it down on the back of a cigarette packet. Then he rode his bike all the way from Maidenhead to bring the message to our home.

You can just imagine the absolute relief we all felt 鈥� especially my sister. We all hugged and there were plenty of tears.

We did not see too much devastation during the war, but one day whilst my father was up a ladder painting the outside of a semi bungalow opposite where we lived, and my son Brian was underneath looking up at his granddad, a bomb dropped in Kentons Lane nearby. There was such a force that I saw Brian lifted right off the ground. At the same time, my sister was on her way round to the shops with Duncan my nephew in his pushchair, and when they came back home he was covered in a rash due to the shock and dust. I took a look into my bedroom and saw that all the glass had been blown out of the French window and was scattered on our bed.

During the war some friends and I decided to form a jazz band which we called The Melody Makers. Tom played the Drums, Curly played the violin, and I played the piano and I sang. Some of the tunes I remember were 鈥淏lue Moon鈥�, 鈥淐hapel in the Moonlight鈥�, 鈥淐harmaine鈥�, and 鈥淧enny Serenade鈥�. We performed in public at many local functions, but what we enjoyed most was when we played at the many Victory Parties out in the streets at the end of the war. We had to push my mother鈥檚 piano outside for these occasions.

Although it was a very sad time, there was so much love amongst neighbours and friends, and we would help each other out with our coupons. For example, so that my mother could carry on baking cakes, she would exchange our sugar rations for margarine. Word would sometimes go round that something special had come into the shops and people would say 鈥淕o to the Co-op 鈥� they鈥檝e got biscuits!鈥� and we would go and stand in the queue for an awful long time. It was not necessary to lock your doors in those days - because nobody would rob you. Kath Beck 2004

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