大象传媒

I was born in 1939 and my formative years during the War were spent in Langdon Hills where my father had a smallholding.

We built our own Anderson shelter out of corrugated iron dug into the ground. Most air raids took place at night so most people rushed out as best as they could into the dugout. I remember the shelters being damp and the smell of paraffin oil.

We had to listen to the bombers going overhead and our fighters. There was definitely a difference in sound between the two 鈥� the bombers would continually drone while the fighters changed in pitch when they dived. There was more fighter interception during the day, then we could see them and their vapour trails. In the morning all us lads would scour the neighbouring fields looking for shrapnel.

Incendiaries dropped around us when we were walking to school and we saw holes 2m deep with the remains of devices still smoking at the bottom. One day a V2 rocket dropped nearby and made a huge crater in a field.

The 大象传媒 would broadcast anti-propaganda saying that V2 rockets had dropped on West London instead of London so that the Germans would alter the trajectory and miss London, but many hit Hornchurch instead. Doodlebugs would fly at a constant height on a set heading then cut out when the fuel ran out and then drop (hence the noise stopping). People would pray that the sound kept going until it was past them!

I remember the food we had 鈥� dried egg powder and orange juice rations amongst other things. There was a very large black market during the War with some farms selling eggs from the farm gate to the marketeers. My father didn鈥檛 do this; he sold them to the Government as he was meant to do and then went out of business!

My father built a lot of bungalows which became known as 鈥淧lotlands鈥�, one of which is preserved now as a museum.

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