大象传媒

The War in a Small Country Town

I remember so well, the Prime Minister, Mr Chamberlain in l939 on his return from Germany, holding aloft a piece of paper and saying that our country will have 鈥� peace in our time鈥�. The next day we were at war with Germany!!

At that time we (my husband, Fred, our first born son Brian who was 9 months old and myself). The news was an anti-climax, so knowing we had to be prepared to build an air raid shelter to run to in the event of air raids, my husband and the neighbour who lived next door set about making one, which meant digging down a deep square hole at the bottom of the garden big enough for four people.

They made a good job of it and put wooden planks for us to sit on and padded the walls with thick cardboard. My neighbour and myself brought out from our houses some old cushions also old off-cuts of linoleum to make the shelter as comfortable as possible. A corrugated sheet was used for the roof cover. It wasn鈥檛 too many days before the sirens started followed by the 鈥渁ll clear鈥�. Sirens and so our air raid shelter was soon put to use. If it happened to be raining, we crouched under the stairs in our houses until we had the 鈥渁ll clear鈥�. That was the conditions we lived under for some time, but we made the best of it.

Some of our neighbours including me volunteered to make luncheons for the workers who were working locally, some repairing MTB boats at our local boathouses on the river, others on machinery for the war effort, and with a little extra ration to add to our own we were able to cook lunch for them.

There weren鈥檛 many days without soldiers on route march marching through our village, singing as they arched towards Cookham and Marlow, keeping their spirits up.

Eventually my husband volunteered for action in the RAF as an electrical engineer, and luckily he did not have to go abroad and was able to come home now and again on weekend leave until they moved him farther away, to Huntingdon. At night we could hear the drone of German Bombers going to bomb Coventry and other targets, as well as daytime raids, and so there were many 鈥渟irens鈥� and 鈥渁ll clears鈥� being sounded. The night bombing kept us awake, and the Germans one night released a bomb over on Cockmarsh, also in a neighbouring field, also in Fernells Wood at Flackwell Heath.

As time went on Brian was growing up and getting excited when his daddy came home on weekend leave to us. It wasn鈥檛 good news when we heard on the radio of the soldiers, sailors and airmen being killed whilst fighting on the ground, in the air and the sea. Such a waste of human life.

Having no bathroom, I used to bath Brian in our big brown kitchen sink before bedtime, and we could see the lit up sky and London from the window, that was the 鈥渄oodlebug鈥� time and Brian鈥檚 small voice saying 鈥淟ights Mummy鈥� and pointing to the lit up sky and hearing next morning that London had been badly bombed.

We had to 鈥淒ig for Victory鈥� and when my husband went into the RAF I used to put Brian in his pushchair, and to the allotments we went to carry on growing vegetables, sometimes I wasn鈥檛 sure of what to do, so one gardener put me right and so we still had our fresh vegetables.

1945 was looming ahead, and the war kept going but all in all we were fortunate in not having too bad a war in Buckinghamshire. Other parts of our country were much worse off than we were.

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