大象传媒

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Childhood Memoirs

On the morning of 3rd September 1939, I was on my way home from Sunday school. I had my ninth birthday just two weeks before. Home was in Ashford, Middx. Where I lived with my parents and younger brothers for the duration of the war and after. My brothers were aged five and eight years old.

For some weeks after WW2 was declared, we children only attended school for half a day much to the delight of some pupils. It was my first year at junior school, the start of the autumn term. Girls were given wool and needles to knit a type of hood (balaclava) for men serving in the forces, to keep out the cold during the coming winter.

Although many bombs fell around the area where we lived in the Home Counties, and London being quite near, the war did not affect us so drastically as for those caught in the Blitz. I remember the many times, usually at night, when we would wake to the wail of the air raid siren and sleepily make our way to the Anderson shelter erected in the garden for safety. We had no light showing because of the black out. In the winter when the weather was very cold with snow and ice, we would squeeze into a cupboard under the stairs. These were often found standing over when a house had a direct hit from a bomb. Some families had an indoor shelter which they could sleep in. This was called a Morrison shelter. When a raid took place we could hear the sound of artillery, ack ack guns firing continually at the enemy planes and the whistling of bombs coming down somewhere near. We often thought a bomb would fall on our house but it is hard to relive the fear we felt then, all these years later.

While the all clear siren sounded and we came out of the shelter I recall seeing a glowing red sky in the distance where the bombing had been heaviest.

Next morning my two brothers and friends in the neighbourhood went searching for shrapnel fragments from artillery shells fired during a raid, to add to their collection.

During 1940 I became friendly with a girl of similar age who was staying with her aunt, in a small flat. Her home in the East end of London had been badly bombed along with many others. Shortly after, my friend (Dorothy) her parents and later a grandmother, came and lived in part of our home until the end of the war. They also shared our air raid shelter.

As a child I did not realise the full horrors of this war although the newspapers were filled with stories and pictures of the atrocities taking place both at home and abroad.

These were quiet times when life seemed almost normal except for shortages and restrictions and we had to carry a gas mask everywhere.

We were all glad when it was over in 1945.

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