大象传媒

I was born on the 8th May 1939. I am told everyone knew war was imminent but, when it was actually declared on the 3rd September that year, my parents, probably along with most other people, were surprised.

They were taking me down to Hastings, in Sussex, to visit my grandparents in their motorcycle and sidecar when a siren started to wail. My mother touched my father on the arm because he was profoundly deaf and they stopped. A lady came rushing out of a house and told them the news. They all looked up expecting bombs or clouds of gas to rain from the skies. Nothing happened that lovely sunny day and not for some time to come. It was decided that they would go on. I and my mother should stay with her parents by the sea whilst my father returned to his war work in London.

Being deaf my father was in a reserved occupation. He was a sheet metal worker of some repute and he had been helping to build a huge number of Spitfires. Indeed, he had made the first prototype, in 1934, at a time when he had no clear idea what the aeroplane would be used for.

My first story is really my father鈥檚. I explained that he returned alone to our Essex house on the northern edge of London. As he was unable to hear, he had arranged with his younger sister, who lived next door, that if the warning should sound she would wake him up and all the neighbours would congregate in the one air raid shelter they had managed to erect in a nearby garden.

Sure enough, in the middle of that first night the siren wailed. Auntie Mary made her way upstairs and shook my father. In the sketchy blackout he had great difficulty in finding his clothes and dressing 鈥� putting on his trousers back to front! He raced down the stairs and met the others at his back door. They jumped over the few low fences between the gardens and flung themselves into the Anderson shelter they had prepared. Unfortunately it was deep in water and they were all thoroughly soaked and disgruntled. They sat there for what seemed like an interminable time and then stumbled back home as the 鈥淎ll Clear鈥� sounded. My father, who hated his sleep being disturbed, informed his sister she need not bother waking him from then on. He would take his chances and stay in his comfortable, warm bed in future!

My second memory is clear. We lived in the highest part of Chingford and, from there, we could look down on London. I remember one night standing at Chingford Mount and seeing St Paul鈥檚 Cathedral bathed in a lurid red glow. Even the River Thames looked alight. My grandparents had joined us at this time because Hastings was receiving bombs from across the Channel and it was safer with us. My grandmother started screaming, 鈥楲ondon鈥檚 afire! London鈥檚 afire!鈥� And it was. This was the beginning of the Battle of Britain and we were watching history being made.

We also lived near to some attractive reservoirs and often, on their way back home, German planes would ditch the last of their live ammunition in the hope of causing chaos to London鈥檚 water supplies. I remember, one such night, being suddenly woken by a stray landmine making an awful 鈥渃rump鈥�. It caused my glass lampshade to smash against the ceiling - showering my bed with glass shards. I screamed.

Another time my school was bombed. My father, who worked a few miles away, heard the news that my school had been attacked and many children had been killed. He quietly laid down his tools, donned his coat and walked out. It took him some time to make his way to us. On arrival he found us all alive and well and promptly took our hands and walked a couple of dozen children home to their unsuspecting parents. Yes, our school had been caught by a stray bomb. It had fallen in the playground. All the windows had shattered and we all had ducked down instinctively and put our hands over our heads. Luckily we were all alive and well.

In summer we would often see the planes overhead having 鈥渄ogfights鈥� whilst we shelled the peas or fed the chickens in our suburban back garden. None of this ever seemed real to us. We saw twisted bits of shrapnel that other children had collected but none of us ever sensed the danger that threatened our country. Some of us, like my friend, slept in indoor 鈥淓mmerson鈥� shelters.

My last memory was really frightening. We were in the 鈥淒ugout鈥� (shelter) for the night. We had our primus stove and bunk beds. It certainly wasn鈥檛 damp but it also wasn鈥檛 terribly pleasant. We could have a low light but it was never allowed to show or an Air Raid Warden would growl 鈥楾urn that light out!鈥� Suddenly we heard the planes coming nearer. There was a deafening 鈥渃rash鈥� and we all ducked. Eventually we all came to and roused ourselves. My father said our house must have taken a direct hit. When it quietened down he clambered out, after ordering us to stay put. We waited and waited. We expected to be told there was a huge crater where once our house had stood. My father walked carefully forward with his arms outstretched. He walked on into the inky blackness. Could he have walked past our house and into the next road? No it was still there! His imagination, and ours, had supplied the drama. Somewhere else had taken a direct hit; but it hadn鈥檛 been us.

What else can I remember? Greasy, well thumbed, fawn ration books where coupons were scored through by indelible pencil to enable us to obtain our miniscule rations. I am told rickets was wiped out in some parts of the UK so maybe we did enjoy a balanced diet after all! We chewed Spanish Wood (and hated it!) and sucked Victory V lozenges (full of morphia!) instead of sweets. Gas Masks that had that nasty, cloying, rubbery smell. Thank goodness we never had to use them. My father coming home from Coventry - where he had been supplying and assimilating aircraft information. He cried as he told us the city was almost raised to the ground. He did not recognise it. I watched, wide eyed, as he became upset. Later in the war, two or three times a week a lorry would pull up at our house and my father would scramble aboard. He would disappear for the whole night. He was on war work and had signed a secrecy clause that he would never divulge its nature. Strangely enough he never did - even after hostilities were over. And that oddly smelling restaurant in our town. If one鈥檚 rations would not stretch, occasionally one was allowed to eat in its echoing dining room, with its trestle tables and benches, and pay a nominal fee for the pleasure. Strangely enough I think the war passed most of us children by. We had grown up with it and were used to it. Ours was a mild war. Sometimes we would see oddly dressed men in the town. They were probably prisoners of war or suspect foreigners who had been taken away from their families as a precaution against spying. None of this seemed to touch any of us greatly. Patricia Redden

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