大象传媒

Audrey was only three years old when war broke out in 1939. She remembers starting school in the Infants where they were working from day one on their alphabet. Her Junior School was on the edge of Heston Airport and lessons kept to the normal timetable, even if there were air raid warnings! Audrey would see German aircraft overhead frequently on the way home from school and often 鈥渇ell to the deck鈥� to take cover till they had passed in case the machine guns started firing. Air raids were frequent and they would usually go in the family鈥檚 Morrison shelter under the table. Unfortunately Audrey was terrified of spiders so this could be a bit of an ordeal! The people next door had an Anderson shelter and the communal shelter was further down the road. This was much more sociable and she remembers this as lots of fun 鈥� all friends together.

Heston Airport was close by and always busy with Flying Fortresses taking off and landing. When Audrey was eight years old she was in her garden, watching a Flying Fortress come in to land. It missed the runway and crashed into the cornfield at the back of their house. Straightaway she dashed out of the garden gate and started to run towards the plane. She had decided to try to rescue the pilot! As she ran a policeman stopped her.
鈥淲here do you think you鈥檙e going?鈥� he asked.
鈥淚鈥檓 going to get the pilot out!鈥� Audrey shouted.
鈥淎nd how old are you?鈥�
鈥淓颈驳丑迟鈥�
鈥淕o on 鈥� you鈥檇 better get back home. There鈥檚 nothing you can do.鈥�
Audrey was bitterly disappointed not to be able to do her brave and daring rescue, but also very worried about the pilot. She found out later that he had been killed in the crash.

Audrey and her friends used to like go to the Airport gate and hang around. The American airmen would often give them some chocolate and chat with them. She wondered then whether the dead pilot had once talked to her or given her some chocolate, and the thought that she might have met him still saddens her now. Her father was away in the Royal Artillery and the Royal Engineers, stationed in Felixstowe and then Basingstoke, and she visited him on the train. The memory of seeing the barbed wire on the beach is still vivid as it made her really aware that the country was at war. The air-raids and airport activity were such an everyday happening at home that, young as she was and with very few memories of life before the war, she thought that was how life was supposed to be.

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