大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People's War site by CSV Storygatherer Alison Lear on behalf of Hazel Frankpitt nee White. The story has been added to the site with her permission. And Hazel Frankpitt fully understands the terms and conditions of the site.

At the beginning of the war I was 9 years old and I went to Greenway Convent in Tiverton. I remenber the fun we had with our gas masks because we could make rude noises with them! The alarm was a ring of the bell for a practice gas attack and we had to assemble under the stage. At the time of exams we used the opportunity to exchange information about answers to questions!

At my home whenever there was an alarm my sisters and I and the children next door used to squash into a cupboard under the stairs.

At night the dads always went outside to see if there were eneny aircraft - "one of their's" - overhead. My uncle and aunt evacuated to live with us during the war and at one point my uncle mentioned he saw some lights flashing in the hills nearby. The result was we were visited quite late by two large wardens who invaded my aunt's bedroom, while she was wearing hair curlers, to look out of the window at the lights. She was very embarassed and annoyerd. The lights turned out to be quite innocent.

Because "careless talk cost lives" all road signs had been taken away and our favourite game as children was to deliberatly give people false directions!

We had two evacuees, girls from Devonport High School, who stayed with us for several years.

At the end of the war we had a wonderful steet party to celebrate. The rationing was quite adequate - we never went without anything.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.