大象传媒

In 1939 I was four years old and living in a loving, secure home with my parents and two brothers, aged six and eight. It was then that my world fell apart, world war two began. My wonderful father was enlisted into the army and sent abroad and my two brothers were evacuated to Bedford.

After a few months my father returned home for a short while, and he decided to visit my brothers. We owned a small car and reached Harpenden in Hertfordshire where the car broke down in heavy snow outside some houses. The people in one of these houses came out and seeing our plight, invited us in. It became apparent the car could not be repaired that day and the people said we must stay the night. These people later proved to be great friends and remained so for the rest of our lives.

My mother and I went to stay with them after my father was shipped off to Egypt. We stayed for two years and I started my schooling there. My brothers later came to Harpendon as well and stayed with relatives of our friends.

After two years we came home and this is when our war began. My father had built an air raid shelter in the garden before he went away, and this was to become our home for many hours during the nights. I still remember the smell of dampness and candles. In the morning, if the all clear siren hadn鈥檛 sounded, my brave mother would dash up to the house and make a pot of porridge for us. Sometimes we went into a communal shelter across the road for the company. The children slept on bunk beds and the adults, mainly women, chatted, sewed and knitted all night.

We still had to attend school when possible. We had reinforced corridors and if the siren sounded we resumed our lessons in these corridors. Sometimes on the way to school the siren would sound and bombs would drop. We were told to lay on the floor wherever we were; we were petrified. Several bombs dropped close to our home and people we knew were killed.

I think the most horrendous things were the Doodlebugs. They were unmanned and would stop dead and glide silently down. Also the whistling bombs. They whistled as they dropped and you would wait with baited breath in case you were their target.

My father was badly injured in Egypt and was invalided out in 1944. He insisted I was to be evacuated again and I went to Leicester, where I stayed for six months until almost the end of the war.

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