大象传媒

My name was Gwendoline Stent and I lived in Lorna Rd Hove from 1934 to 1946. My identity number was EJFQ 372/3

World War 2 started on the 3rd September 1939 and ended in May 1945.

The air raid sirens started for the first time as I was walking home from Sunday School mid-day on the 3rd September. The sound was quite frightening hearing it on my own. The sirens had two differient sounds. The initial warning was a long wailing noise repeated over a period; the "all-clear" was a continious sound lasting about a minute. The sirens were placed on the roofs of prominent buildings such as Town Halls, and other tall places.

I lived in Hove on the South Coast and when the bombing of London became dangerous it was decided to evacuate the school children (and some of their Mums) down South. We had quite a large number drafted into Brighton and Hove. This meant that we locals shared our school time with the children from London; so we would attend our school one week in the mornings and the next week in the afternoons. On the days the London children took over our school alternative venues for our lessons were found,and my school went into the Jewish Hall in Lansdown Road. On fine days we went to one of the parks to play team games but if the sirens started we had to make a quick exit for the nearest air raid shelter which most parks had. There were quite a number of Anderson Shelters in the Hove Area. These were shelters built in people's gardens in the main and offered good protection for all except direct hits. Another type was the Morrison Shelter for indoor use on the ground floor.

My father was an Air Raid Warden and his post was in the crypt of St Thomas's Church situated at the corner of Davigdor Rd and Nizells Avenue, it was near here that there was a direct hit quite early on in the war. Wardens were drawn from differient walks of life, one was a Miss Mary Broadwood who lived with her mother in Summerfield Lodge a very large house at the corner of Summefield Rd( which I now see is a block of flats). Mary was a cousin of Field Marshal Montgomery and her mother made the Christening Robes for him. The house of a friend of ours, by the name of BOX in Nizells Avenue was badly bombed. They owned Box's typewriter shop in Duke St (which I think is Browns Restaurant now) and Box's Commercial College in Gloucester Place Brighton. The aforementioned crypt which was used as an ARP post, also hosted concerts and on one occasion I was there when a salior sang "I'll walk beside you". This evoked quite a lot of emotion - I often wonder where he went from there.

Whilst I was still at school, East Hove Senior school for girls, a German plane crashed into the side of a house close to Holland Rd railway halt, the German airman having parachuted out somewhere near Upper North Street.

We shared our school with evacuees from London, alternating our lessons mornings and afternoons each week. We often went to the Jewish Macabee Hall in Lansdown Rd or weather permitting into St Annes Well Gardens. Our indoor swimming pool was turned into an air raid shelter when the war started. Our Head Mistress was Miss Lilian Beaton - a great friend of my fathers because they were both at a pupil training college together in Pelham St Brighton. Our P.E. and Science teacher was the youngest teacher
at school. Her name was Miss Morris, and her father taught my father in his young days at Connaught Rd Boys School. (this by the way is the only school still standing that I remember from living in Hove. My own school is now a block of flats!)An amusing incident is worth a mention; at a cookery lesson - which was held on a limited scale - we were told to economise as everything was either rationed or very scarce. On this particular occasion we were making vegetable soup and told to bring some bacon rinds from home. My mother was upset because we had used all our bacon ration for the 4 of us for the month. I had to explain this to Miss Pollock, and I did not get a house point for my team (I was in St. Andrews House which nearly always did well).

Clothes were also very difficult to come by because we were only allowed a few coupons, but in my second year there when I was nearly 14 yrs, my cousin Diana who had come over to England from Kenya to finish her education ay Roedean School. When things began deteriorating in England with air raids etc her parents decided she should return to Kenya, so they gave me all her uniforms and as you can guess I looked very smart against the somewhat austere council school uniform! In this connection, life became much worse in Kenya due I think to the impending MAU MAU troubles.

At 14years and 6months it was decided that I should leave school, so I had to look for a job. I very quickly obtained a post of general junior clerk at Hove Food Office in the Hove Town Hall.

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