大象传媒

The war began when I was only four years old, and living in Plymouth with my parents. I can still remember the day that war was declared on 3 September 1939. On that fateful day my father pointed upwards where I could see a barrage balloon floating in the sky. My father was soon recalled to the Royal Marines where he was posted to Hayling Island and where my mother and I joined him. It was my sixth birthday on 21 March 1941 and my parents took me out for the day as a treat to Portsmouth. The same evening we heard on the radio that Plymouth had been badly bombed. My parents were very worried about their families but luckily none of them had been injured. My grandmother wrote to tell us that she was without gas and had to try cooking in a biscuit tin!

We returned to Plymouth in 1942 when there was still heavy bombing. We had a Morrison shelter in our house which was a very large steel table. When the sirens sounded in the night my mother would wake me up and we would crawl underneath the table. I would never go inside it without first picking up a wicker basket which contained all my favourite toys and books. There were several tenants living in our house and one was an elderly Irish lady. At the height of one air raid I can remember her making the sign of the cross and praying 鈥淕od save Josephine鈥�.

One day after a particularly bad air raid I was walking down North Road with my Aunty where we saw several houses which had been bombed and people being carried out on stretchers. We lived in a house near the centre of Plymouth and I shared the front bedroom with my mother. Sadly by 1944 she was a war widow as my father had died the year before. One morning I woke to hear a great babble of voices outside our window and saw a frightened look on my mother鈥檚 face. She exclaimed 鈥淭he Germans must have landed鈥�. We rushed over to the curtains to take a peep, both worried at what may be revealed. It was a great relief when we saw that our small garden and, in fact, the whole street, was full of our own soldiers in uniform. They seemed to have stopped to take a break and although we didn鈥檛 know it at the time they were on their way to the Normandy beaches in France.

It was hard to be without sweets and chocolates except for the small amount allowed on ration. My mother saved her coupons at times so that she could buy jelly and blancmange for my birthday. It was very rare to see a fresh egg but we had powdered ones instead. I didn鈥檛 know what a banana tasted like until after the War when there was great excitement when children were given one each. We had to queue everywhere and I can recall waiting for over an hour just to buy some iced fancy cakes.

I loved reading and Enid Blyton was my favourite author. My mother would walk around nearly every bookshop left standing to try and get me one for birthdays or Christmas. When the war ended a note was displayed on my school notice board giving the glorious news. There were celebrations galore and I went to a VE party held in Farleys Field which was one of many held all over the country. One of my Aunts didn鈥檛 feel like joining in the celebrations until August 1945 when the Japanese surrendered as her son and his wife were prisoners of war of the Japanese until then. When they eventually returned home we decorated their cottage with flags and had a big family party. For children like myself growing up at that time, we were too young to appreciate the full extent of the dangers that we had lived through.

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