大象传媒

The war srarted on my first birthday. The earliest memory I have is of some sort of training exercise with paracutes coming down over Chelmsford. My mother(Gladys) told me it was something to do with the Battle of Britain but I'm not sure. I know I was frightened by it. Later there were barrage balloons on the rec. and one day in a storm they all blew away. One caught fire and floated right by our kitchen window. That frightened me too! We lived in the bank house above Lloyds Bank in the High Street on the top two floors, so we had a good view of all that went on. I don't remember being frightened of air raids though. There was one most nights and I could tell which planes were German, and you could hear the whistle of the bombs. We used to go down to the book room in the cellar and there was a big box of paper cash bags I used to sit in. Sometimes my dad (Reg) was out at the county hall helping organise the ARP and my mum was always nervous when he wasn't there. There were two nights when we had concentration raids that went on all night, and after the sky was scarlet with the fires. They destroyed the bus station in one, thinking it was Marconis. I only remember one daylight raid when we were in the cellar with the bank staff. Later in the war the V1s came over. When the engine stopped you counted to 15 and if you got to the end it had landed somewhere else, but I don't think I ever thought they would land on us. The V2s were sneakier ...you couldn't hear them until they landed. The one that landed on the swimming pool blew in the bank's windows, but all our windows had blackout panels and you couldn't put a light on until they were up. I just remember the war being a time when everyone was very friendly. VE day was lovely with lights and dancing in the streets, but people seemed less friendly after. I remember the lovely long light evenings with double summer time, when my mother and I went out for walks if my father was at county hall, and there were other mothers and children about (children didn't go to bed early then, I don't think) and American soldiers who gave us sweets. There were also our soldiers on the rec., manning the barrage balloons and the very noisy anti aircraft rockets stationed there. And normal things went on. On Fridays after market farmers drove their sheep home down Chelmsford High Street, and on Sundays KEGS cadet corps band marched through the town. I started school towards the end of the war and once or twice we went to our air raid shelter, but it was the earlier time when I was at home all day I really remember, and remember with considerable affection. It was a lovely time even if there was a war on!

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