大象传媒

When my son was born on 19th September 1938 they were digging trenches in the road outside the nursing home. A few days later a jubilant nurse rushed into my room waving a newspaper with the enormous headline 'Peace in Our Time'.

It was an uneasy peace and war was actually declared just about a year later. Everyone was issued with a gas mask as gas attacks were expected daily and one room in each house had to be prepared for a retreat with sealed windows and fire places and enough rations, bedding, candles etc. to last for several days. Fortunately we had no gas attacks but the masks had to be carried everywhere. The blackout was a problem gradually overcome by dyeing all available curtains and using any dark blankets or bed covers one had or was able to buy.

When the day light raids started there were numerous dog fights over our garden. I put the children in the larder under the stairs, packed around with cushions and eiderdowns in case bombs or planes came down on top of us, and slipped out to watch the fights - it was very exciting.

The night raids were much more frightening and it was unnerving to hear the German bombers night after night flying over us on their way to London. On their way back they often dropped any left over bombs in our area and one night a landmine was dropped very near our house. All our upstairs ceilings came down and both children were buried under slabs of plaster! I thought my little daughter Elizabeth was dead but she was still asleep! My tiny son had only a small cut on his lip. After that we slept downstairs!
Several friends came to help clear up the mess

Shortly after the bombing incident my husband Philip received his call up papers - he had not been permitted to join up earlier as being a bank official he was in a reserved occupation. He was determined to serve in the Navy rather than the Army but was told at the age of 34 he was too old. However, having passed the medical and in turn all the other tests he was eventually admitted to the Navy. He joined the Signals of the Fleet Air Arm as an Ordinary Seaman but was soon promoted to Warrant Officer and shortly after to Lieutenant, when, overnight, from being a Seaman's wife, I became an 'Officer's Lady' (to our considerable amusement). He spent most of the war in camp in Warrington - he never flew in a plane or even saw a ship in spite of being in the Fleet Air Arm. He became an instructor in charge of radar, servicing and teaching the use and servicing of radar to many of our British airmen and numbers of our Allies, some of whom spoke very little English! He was also in charge of all entertainments and because he was older than most others in the camp became a sort of father confessor to all ranks. During the last few months of the war he was drafted to the Admiralty so he was able to live at home and commute daily to London until he was demobbed shortly after VJ day.

Meanwhile, at home we kept busy. the children went to school and I grew a surprising variety of vegetables, cabbage,sprouts, magnificent cauliflowers, peas, four kinds or beans, carrots, turnips and shallots, onions, khol rabbi, marrows, cucumbers and melons, lettus and tomatoes all out of doors. Also, as we then had double summer time, I can remember planting potatoes at 11 o'clock at night. I think the soil in Horley must be very fertile!

The night bombing started again and the children slept on the floor in the lounge. I spent a large part of those nights kneeling beside them with cushions at the ready to throw over their heads to protect their faces and eyes from any possible flying glass. Then I was able to obtain a Morrison shelter - a very large steel table which was erected in the dining room and under this I slept with a child on each side. Then the buzzbombs started (or doodle bugs as some called them) and they continued day and night at intervals for some time.

Rations were scarce but we managed - we thoroughly enjoyed the tinned sausage meat and spam from America. Our American cousins sent us clothes as well as food parcels. It was quite exxciting sorting out which garments would fit which one! We came to enjoy dried egg - the omelettes were really appetizing and the cakes surprising good. At one time a friend was able to let me have some sugar and when no fruit was available made some delicious jam with dried prunes.

Eventually the buzz bombs became very frequent and the barrage balloons flying above us to try and trap them and make them fall on unoccupied areas, got closer and closer till we heard the shrapnel from the anti-air guns clattering on the garage roof! Then there were several cases of measles at school and I felt I just couldn't nurse measles in an air raid shelter so we packed up and went to Oxford to spend the last few months of the war with Dorothy and Don my sister and brother in law who had been begging us to join them for some time. It was very quiet there and they had no raids. I didn't expect to see our house standing when we returned but there it was safe and sound when we got back shortly before VE day.

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