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When the war first started I was aged 8 years old, I lived in Portsmouth at the outbreak of war at Hollam Road,
Southsea. Many bombs fell on the harbour and the guildhall. My brother was coming home from school one day when an air raid warning sounded. He ran to a shelter in Milton Park and as he jumped into the shelter he caught his foot on the metal bar and fell on one leg injuring himself. To this day he suffers from Ostiomyolitis.

The bombs got so bad at that time that we moved to Brighton. We lived with my grand mother on the top floor of 55 Clyde Road. My brother, three sisters and mother all slept on a mattress on the floor until we could get a house of our own at 23 Gerard Street. This was an exciting time for me as a young child — but the dangers were not known. One day there was a dog fight over our house and I stood on the doorstep and watched. I saw the pilot in a leather helmet and the German plane firing at each other until my mother came and grabbed me to our Morrison shelter.

There was a bomb dropped on the Brighton viaduct which broke some windows and my elder sister cut her arm on the glass in a panic. The worst memory was the bomb that fell on the pub at mid day on a Saturday morning killing all the occupants. Arms, legs, headless bodies and bits and pieces were scattered over many streets.

My mother had the dreaded telegram one day to tell her that dad had been torpedoed and was missing on HMS Dauntless. Many months later he was found floating frozen to a raft, just off Scarper Flow in Scotland, an anxious moment for us all.

My school days were another matter. On my way to school I had to walk over London Road Station Bridge where some Canadian soldiers were billeted. We got friendly in time and they taught me how to occupy my time by showing me how to make crepe paper tulips and carnations. Brooches were made from cods head bones boiled to get all the fish off - it was an amazing site to see the most beautiful shapes painted in many colours. They also took the copper wire from dynamos and wound them round a small knitting needle and shaped them into flowers, then wound silk thread though the coils. My mother took all five of us to dancing lessons; as we progressed we entertained the Canadians and the Americans at the labour club in London Road.

My eldest sister was coming home from school carrying a rice pudding and a German fighter plane machine gunned London Road. My sister ran in panic but a man who was sheltering in the church pulled my sister into the doorway out of the way of the bullets - spilling the rice pudding! She came home crying about the lost rice pudding, not the fact she could have been killed!

We then moved to 54 Southdown Road but it was not long before the council came round and cut down all the railings in our street to go towards the war effort in making munitions. At this house we kept ducks and about 100 rabbits in hutches all along the garden wall to help the rations go further. It was quite a struggle to feed us all but mother devised a good few ways of doing that. A sheep’s head made brawn, pressed tongue and brains were used as well if the coupons were not enough to buy meat. We had marrow bones boiled down for stock and had vegetable stew. At this address we had a large staircase in which we used to go to hide when the sirens sounded. The windows were covered with strips of material to stop them from shattering in case of a blast. There was a dairy just around the corner in which I worked for a shilling a week and gave this to my mother to help out at home.

When D-Day came there was shouting and singing in our street and a party was organised. We all looked forward to our father coming home unfortunately he came home on the QE2 - a hospital ship that docked at Liverpool. My mother went to find him and he spent the rest of his life 100 per cent disabled, and died at the age of 50 years. When I look back over his life he did all he could for all of his children from lying in his bed. At least we had a few years with him; many of my friends from school never saw their dads again.

How futile is war. The children of today are sheltered from all the horrors of war. Perhaps if they have the opportunity to be told, they will have a better appreciation of the world today.

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