大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War web site by Stoke-on-Trent Libraries on behalf of Olive Farrell and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

I was 7 years old when war broke out.
I remember it was a Sunday morning when the announcement came over the radio, my parents were very shocked.
My friends parents went into the forces but my own parents were too old. I remember we always has to carry our gas masks. I has a special case for my mask - it was made out of plastic and it made me feel very special.
Our air raid shelter at school was made out of bricks of all things - and I remember we had to go into the shelter to practice in the event that the sirens went off.
We ate prunes instead of sweets - I wonder if that is why many people my age still have our own teeth ?
I remember the Americans, they seemed so sophisticated. They seemed to have more money than our chaps. we would shout "Have you got any gum chum?" and they would throw some gum from their jeeps.
In the blackouts I remember we wore luminous disks on our coats - it was strange to encounter COMPLETE darkness - we had not experienced that before.

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