大象传媒

Mrs. Kathleen Nevin was 9 or 10 during the war and she shared these memories with me of her childhood in Portstewart..

I remember the streets full of children imitating sentry duty with sticks for rifles. We knew the bugle calls off by heart.

At home no-one told us anything.
It was all hush hush. The radio played constantly. At 9pm on Sunday evenings they would play the National Anthems of all the free nations and I would creep out of bed and listen to it on the stairs.

My father was in the army from 1939- 1945. He served in N. Africa and Italy.
There must have been a scheme whereby the soldiers got to send things home because I remember sweets arriving on birthdays.

Once my mother received a handbag made from camel skin(probably from Africa) but it must'nt have been cured properly and stank to high heaven. It spent several days in the fresh air on the washing line!

A smell of a different kind assailed us with the arrival of the 'Tin Box'.
The fact that it was sealed gave it an air of extraordinary mystery.Once opened the sweet pungent smell of the oranges was overwhelming! We had never seen them before and the local children came from far and wide to investigate.

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