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My grandfather, Reverent Goerge Wiliam Jackson, was appointed minister at Southwold Congregation Church(now the United Reformed Church)in I think 1938.I was then just about 4yrs old.My dad had TB and as a result we came to live with my grandparents,no Health services then.

My earliest memory is of being avacuated to Baltic farm, in Cratfield, Near Halesworth along wtth my mum.Mr and Mrs Lambert and their daughter Mary. I had a wonderful summer running wild a lot of time.Had some wonderful adventures, riding in a chicken hut towed behind a tractor and coming into the farm house covered in red mites from head to toe.The rest of my age group had been sent somewhere in Wales but I was not allowed to go as nboth my parents had TB, although my mum had recovered. I can tell quite a few yarns about life on the farm, from the double thunderbox at the end of the garden to being pelted with stones as i was a strange kid in the village.Sitting on the bench of a Suffolk Punch in the yard and peering into the guttering alongside the barn.This must have been 1940.

My dad became well enough about then to go to work Morlings in Lowestoft, and we had a rentd bungalow in Gorleston road.I feel it was owned by Morlings, but i was never able to establish that. This was at hte time when the bombing severe and i remember someone coming to yhe front door and telling my mum that Morlings had been flattened and no one had survived. You can imagine the shock, but there was an even to come. About an hour or so later , my father walked in through the door.He had been sent out on an erand and was herded into shelter along with a lot of other people and survibed.The bombing continued, and in 1941 May or June the parachute mines were dropped in the vicinity of Gorleston road and we were bombed out. Thanks to Lowestoft Record Office I found the picture of the devastation that was caused to or homes. I can give more graphic design depending on how much you need. I was scooped up in an eiderdown and my dad took mum and i and took us to a farm in Blundeston, where he had made arrangements for us to go should the worst happen.It was bright moonlight and there were ducks asllep around the pnd and it was so peaceful.

From there we re-joined my grandparents at 22 Pier Avenue.By now over and above his pastoral duties, grandad was special Costable and he would go out on patrol. It wasn't until i went work at what was then Fordux Mills IN THE 1950'S that i had a liitle more abut his exploits.Apparently if anyone was sloppy in their blackout arrangements tney would hear grandad's of Put that light out'Ofcourse being a minister it meatn that all sorts of folk came and and went through the doors of the Manse, like the dear little lady who came in once a week to clean for gran and a cup of tea.Gran use to conjure up all sorts of edibles rom the most unlikely ingredients. She sent a bag of home made dog biscuits home for our dog Nicky on one occasion but the poor the dog nearly missed out as tried one of these offerings and it was quite tasty.Bacon rinds and other titbits were in the pasrty,mum and gran slaved over some boys flannel shorts at one point as i recall.They had volunteered to make clothes for evacuees. After battling with the cut out bits they were sent,it turned out hte had been a batch of fronts and no backs.I don't know what happened to them in the end.Sunday evening services at the congregational were often followed by a get together in the schoolroom at the back of the chapel. As there were a lot of troops billeted in and around Southwold who were not on duty, they would come in for a cup of tea and a snack along with a sing song.Mostly hymns from the Moody and the Sakey book.

My dad by this time having been exempted from army service due to his health, had plagued the authorities to be given a job in the war effort , and had been made Barrack Warden, for a wide area around and about Southwold. He had to check on all the requisitioned properties before and after troops were moved in. Making sure the electrics and so on were in order.He also had to account for any missing items.He was quiet impressed with his first encounter witjh a GI.He had to take some to take some American officers to look at one billet and was taken in a jeep, driven by a huge cigar smoking Negro.Also coming to my mind is the world war one shell case, which was used as a coal scutttle in dad's office in Southwold High Street.Not until the hostilities , when the offfice was being cleared, did someone from bomb disposal look at it?out of curiosity, and descover that hte detonator was still in intact.How ever no one got blown to kingdom cometduring those years,.

My mum had suffered from a severe form af anaemia during this time and had several spels in Southwold Cottage hospital.That was at the time when there was a matron incharge.I lived with my grandparents during those weeks and gran was great at keeping a young girl well occupied.When mu was able to come home she was put on course of Guiness to combat the anemia and I'll never forget her face as she forced this dark smelly liquid down her throat.

One lovely memory to end with.I had been working at Fordux for some years when a new girl from out in the country started working in the offive with me.We were chatting and i knew she took her sandwiches round to her aunt's at dinner times.One day she asked who my grandfather wa.When i told her she was thrilled to tell me that her aunt wanted to get married during the war, but due St Edmund's being bombed had not been able to do that.Until my grandfather came to rescue and married the happy couple in the Congregational church.In't

Also recall before becoming a Barrack Warden dad had driven an ambulnace between Southwo;d and Lowestoft.

Troops parked on the verge opposite our house in Lowestoft road at Reydon before D- DAY.The yanks giving we children parties at the local schools and then being given a present from an American child to take home.On VE Day finding pocket money could only stretch to one small Union Jacket between two of us and the rest went on two bottles of ginger beer.i don't know how pld it was but I'v naver liked it since.Then hte bonfires with effigies of Hittler being burnt up, all around the district.And the feeling that all would now be well.No more blackout at least.

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