大象传媒

This story was gathered at Bedford鈥檚 VE/VJ Celebration event at Castle Mound and submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Gillian Ridley for Three Counties Action on behalf of Mr David Lamble and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was born in 1940 in Central London. My Father worked in a munitions factory (making bakerlite I think), which moved up to Oldham in Lancs. In about 1941 or 1942.
In around 1945 I remember the doodlebug the noise they made was like an old motorbike engine, then it cuts out and falls, a whole street was flattened about three streets away from us.

There was a Prisoner of war Camp in Oldham and after the war had finished they used to walk down the high street unaccompanied. We thought at the time they were Germans but on reflection they could have been Italians. Us kids used to run after them, jump on their backs and try to get sweets of them.
I remember this well as our home was on the main road and there was a place by a small wall where we could hide and jump out on them. They took this in good part.

Just after or during the war we had ration books I remember we always had the sweet rations left as we didn鈥檛 have the money to buy them, but we never felt deprived as everyone was in the same boat.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.