大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Simon Harris and has been added to the website on behalf of Valerie Barnes with her permission and they understand the site's terms and conditions.

I was only three years old when the war started and lived with my family at Cherry Garden Lane in Folkestone. My grandparents lived just round the corner in Cherry Garden Avenue and they were amongst the first to have a shelter installed. We tried it out when the first test siren was sounded.

My grandfather was the mayor of Folkestone, my father was in business and my eldest brother, Raymond worked for the electricity company before joining the Navy. All three needed to remain in Folkestone and so we stayed until the spring of 1940 before leaving Kent for a short while. After the women and children spent some time in Leicestershire the family moved to Willington Street, Maidstone. Here a chimney fire nearly got us bombed but luckily the bombers had poor aim that night. We then moved to Elham near Folkestone in the spring of 1941. Here we lived next door to a doctor and this served us well. The doctor鈥檚 phone line did not work well so our family acted as his emergency call and father was his emergency transport, going out to local farms. This meant that the family was never short of food as doctors were often paid in kind. We would always have meat at the table because of grateful farmers who we had helped get the doctor to see. Folkestone was heavily mined during the war in case of German invasion. One day our house, which we had kept on, was damaged when a landmine blew up behind it. Sadly looters took advantage and we lost toys and heirlooms.

I was still only nine when the war ended. By then I had suffered the trauma of losing my big brother Raymond in terrible circumstances. But war was all I had ever known and peacetime was to be a whole new experience.

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