大象传媒

'This story was submitted to the People's War site by Edward Fawcett for Three Counties Action on behalf of Ann Parry and has been added to the site with her permission.The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

'My first distinct memory of the war was when I was a little girl I had to go to the dentist and I was promised an icecream.We went to one of the big stores in Oxford to buy an icecream but there weren't any," because there's a war on".I must have been five or six and I was very upset.When I was five at the very beginning of the war we lived in Cheam in Surrey and my father was a volunteer fireman in the evening as well as being a solicitor in the City.He volunteered to go into the RAF and was able to choose what he wanted to do which was RAF Intelligence and he got a Commission.

When the Blitz started my sister and I nearly got sent off to Mexico to stay with a Great Uncle but my mother said No when she found out that she wasn't going aswell.Instead, we went to live with my Grandfather in Oxford.We had a Polish airman come to stay with us for his two weeks leave and his name was Michael.He taught us how to say Goodmorning in Polish,something like Schindobre.All our windows had to have black curtain linings for the Blackout and I can just remember a Warden coming round and inspecting people's houses for the blackout.We all had to "Dig for Victory" and as my Grandfather had a big garden my mother dug up the lawn to grow vegetables and we even went out and picked stinging nettles and brought them home and cooked them.In the three years we were at Oxford I was ill quite often,measles,mumps,whooping cough,appendix out,tonsils and adenoids out so I missed a lot of school.

After three years we moved back to Cheam and bought a house.Whilst in Cheam we used to keep chickens and rabbits aswell as having an allottment in the Park.Chickens were for eggs and for meat when the chickens got too old and we used to eat the young rabbits and my mother used their skins to make fur gloves.I remember cycling to the Park allottment carrying the tools on our bicycles.My father had been mainly based in the Orkneys then he came home for a fortnight's leave before going to India.I remember my mother being very upset when he left because she thought he was going off to fight the Japanese.It was the only time I ever saw her cry.However, he ended up being sent to Italy instead where he stayed for 18 months.When he came home he sent my mother a telegram saying he was on his way but without saying when.One evening my mother went to play bridge at a friend's house leaving their telephone number with me and my sister.Later, the phone rang and it was my father.I recognised him straight away and he said he was at Cheam station.So I phoned mother saying he was at Cheam station, which wasn't far away,so she immediately got on her bike to meet him,putting his luggage on the back of her bike.Meanwhile,we had already made a welcome home banner when we originally received the telegram so we put that up in the hall.

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