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This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from ´óÏó´«Ã½ London CSV Action Desk on behalf of Iona Gordon and has been added to the site with his or her persmission. Iona Gordon fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was 11 years old on the morning that war was declared. I was recently reminded by someone who was also there at the time, refreshing my memory of a peculiar occurrence: Just shortly after the declaration of war the pheasants residing in the nearby woods gave an alarm call at 11am. The timing was very poignant.

I think I was quite disappointed because with the onset of war there was little excitement.

Since we lived on a farm we were not terribly bothered with rationing — so I did not experience the effects it had other than when I was at school — cold meat and stodgy pudding, and especially bitter damson plum jam stick in my memory. I haven’t eaten jam since!

In fact because of the fresh produce at hand the family even offered villagers butter and milk, but were refused unless the offer was made permanent!

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