大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from CSVBerkshire on behalf of Pat Stevens and has been added to the site with her permission. Pat fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Childhood memories of Portsmouth and Hinton Ampner

At the beginning of the war I was five years old and lived in Portsmouth with my parents. My father owned a grocery and butcher shop. We lived in a flat above the business in Arundel Street which was close to the main station and Guildhall in the heart of Portsmouth. My father worked very hard not only supplying the local neighbourhood but also the naval ships in the dockyard and the Naafi. I remember him making thousands of pounds of sausages. His work was considered an essential service therefore he was not called up to join the armed forces.

Portsmouth was very much in the firing line and virtually flattened. As a young child I spent time in the shop and each morning people would come in and tell us who had been killed and which houses had been hit. I just assumed that one day it would happen to my family. People would come in to ask for water which was often in short supply after the air raids, as the pipes had been shattered. There was rationing, of course, we had coupons for everything. There were several shops in Arundel Street, the newsagent, bakers etc, and this is where the women met to talk things over. The pubs, and there were many of them, were the domain of the men.

Another memory is the furniture in the streets. It seemed that people thought it was best to move some of the furniture from their homes in case the house was hit. It was a hindrance at times when it was necessary to reach bombed sites. I particularly remember the night the Twilfit factory was hit. The plane could be seen over the Solent and eventually crashed into the corset factory causing a great blaze. Our flat felt like an oven from the heat.

My father was in the Home Guard and did his share of fire watching. One night he was injured by an exploding incendiary bomb. He came in to the shelter to ask if his ear had been blown off, as he had blood all down his white overall. This made a lasting impression on me. Each night we went into the shelter to sleep, often with the children from the fish and chip shop next door. We played out our experiences of the air raids but later, when I was evacuated, I got into trouble for doing this.

At this time we had eight cats. They were very important because of the vermin problem. One cat always seemed to know when there was going to be a raid and would move her kittens.

My parents had to find a new school for me after my first school, at Fratton, was bombed. I joined the junior department of Portsmouth High School which had been evacuated to Hinton Ampner House, the private home of Ralph Dutton, which was requisitioned. It was a lovely house in beautiful grounds and I enjoyed the countryside and birds and flowers, which was helpful because I was the youngest girl there and felt very home sick. There were about a hundred girls all together . Being an only child I now had ready made friends. We had fun after lights out and often got into trouble for talking. Our punishment was to go down to the cold kitchen and peel potatoes or, even worse, go to the cellar where the cloakroom was situated and tidy up. We had the run of the garden and enjoyed a certain amount of freedom. Not everyone was happy and some did try to run away. There were big cold rooms and we wore lots of clothes - vests and liberty bodices! We were allowed to bath in only five inches of water which had to be shared.

I think the school cooks did well. We had great piles of bread and margarine and I particularly enjoyed the scrambled egg made with powdered egg. After breakfast there were queues of girls waiting to receive added vitamins - malt, Virol and Bemax, which had been sent by their parents. The class teacher had our sweet coupons and we were usually given two or three after lunch on Saturdays.

My parents visited sometimes at weekends, getting the train to Petersfield and cycling to Hinton Ampner. I went home in the school holidays so I was in Portsmouth for many heavy raids. Back at school I was in constant fear of my parents being killed. At night we could see the glow over the hills towards Portsmouth. I had few relatives and my nightly prayers were that I would be killed along with my parents. I was not afraid of death but of being left alone!

I left Hinton Ampner when I was ten - just as I was really beginning to enjoy life there.

Because we were all thrown together at a difficult time many of us have kept in touch throughout our lives. Since 1992 I have been arranging reunions at the school. We meet on the last Sunday in June at Hinton Ampner.

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