大象传媒

鈥淭his story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Adult and Community Learning, Woodstock, on behalf of Stan and has been added to the site with his permission. Stan fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.鈥�

I was 8 years old in 1939 and lived in Dagenham Essex. Me and my two brothers were evacuated from Fords Jettee on a paddle steamer to Lowestoft.

When we got there we slept on straw for a few nights and then we were sent to a vicarage. After a couple of months we were taken home. My mum missed us.

We went on a coach trip one day and they gave us a carrier bag with a big bar of chocolate, a drink and an apple and an orange and we were told not to eat them but to save them till later. Of course we ate them straight away. It was the first bar of chocolate we had ever had.

We used to watch the spitfires landing at Hornchurch Aerodrome during the Battle of Britain and every time they came back home there was always one missing.

We were evacuated again in 1940 to Twyning, Gloucestershire. I was separated from my brothers and went into the Manor House but got thrown out because I would not wear a tie at mealtimes. I never had a tie.

I was 10 years old when an explosion perforated my eardrum. I heard a doodlebug coming and I stuck my head out of the window to see it. I have suffered with it ever since.

My brother Bob went to war in the airforce. He came home in a coffin. He burned to death. When they brought the coffin into the house, the man opened the lid and slammed it shut again saying the body was too badly burned for anyone to look at it. The death of her son ruined my mother鈥檚 life. Many people in our road never came back from the war.

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