大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by Anne Wareing of the Lancs. Home Guard on behalf of John Cecil Larkin and has been added to the site with his permission..

On the 3rd of September 1939 I remember listening to the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain broadcasting the outbreak of war. I was eight years old and my parents, one sister and four brothers; we were living in Minehead Somerset. We had three separate groups of evacuees come and stay with us from time to time and mother had to look after them as well as all of us.

I remember when we were all given gas masks and the baby having to have a special one something like a closed in cocoon. We only went to school each day for two hours and one day when we were on a trip to Exeter, the sirens suddenly sounded. An air raid protection officer told us it wasn鈥檛 a practice as we鈥檇 thought it might be, but the real thing; Exeter was very heavily bombed that day.

I remember my fawn coloured ration book; we only got basic amounts. A pound of potatoes cost one penny and one farthing. There were hosepipes along the street and tarred strips of paper stuck onto the windows to strengthen the glass.

My father was a hairdresser he had joined the Territorial Army in 1937 the Somerset Light Infantry, then in 1939 when war broke out he joined a Lancashire Regiment, The Kings Own and was billeted away from home at Middleton in Morecambe.

He went to France with the British Expeditionary Force and was rescued from Dunkirk. Following this ordeal he became ill and had to spend several months in hospital, following which he left the army on medical grounds.

There had been lots of American Servicemen in the area and on VE Day they arranged a firework display on the beach and bunting in the streets and everyone celebrated.

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