大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Sarah Housden of Norfolk Adult Education鈥檚 reminiscence team on behalf of Val Arterton, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was born on February 19th 1939 and my earliest memories are of being woken up night after night, being dressed while I stood repeatedly falling back down onto my bed asleep, and then being taken down to the air raid shelter that my father had dug out in the back garden. We called it a 鈥榙ugout鈥�. My mother and a female neighbour also joined us, and I used to sit in the dugout with a paraffin lamp burning, having biscuits and cake to eat. Everything tasted and smelled of paraffin, and I was quite cold at first. I was very upset when my cat would not come in: I knew he could be killed as I could see the coloured lights (tracer bullets) up in the sky.

On one such occasion an incendiary bomb fell beside my bedroom window damaging the outside wall of the house. Luckily it did not explode on the roof else I would have lost my bedroom.

I am standing outside my front gate (I lived in Norwich) and seeing a double decker bus full of children who were being evacuated. I can remember seeing a bright orange glow from the fires in the city, and being so thankful that it was not me on that bus and that I still had a home to go to.

I used to walk down Ber Street in Norwich to see my Grandparents and there were huge hose pipes strewn across the street and pavements. We had to walk over them in the dark with only a small torch to light our way. There were blackouts at night and no street lights.

When I was at school, we would all line up in the playground when the siren went and file into the huge brick underground shelter. We were each given a small stick of barley sugar to eat while we were down there which we thought quite rewarding as sweets were on ration and we were only allowed 4oz per week each.

About this time I also remember distinguishing the different planes coming over 鈥� whether they were 鈥榯heirs or ours鈥�, meaning German planes or our own planes.

My father was away in the Midlands working in a Munitions factory so we did not see him very often. One evening there was a knock on the back door and when I went to open it I saw this man standing there in the evening light. I ran back to my Mum and said 鈥淭here is a man at the door鈥� and was quite frightened when he followed me into the house. How upsetting that must have been for my father.

We did not go out on day trips very much, but when we did it was quite an event and we took a picnic all wrapped up in a tea towel. We usually went down to Cromer where we would sit on the sand and eat our picnic to the sounds of heavy gun fire coming from over the sea. Then it was hard to imagine there was a war on.

On one occasion my Grandparents came to stay overnight and my Grandmother had trouble with her bedroom light switch. She finally gave up and said that she couldn鈥檛 get it to work and we needed to get a new light bulb. That same evening an air raid warden knocked on our door and questioned my mother about what she had been doing signalling to the enemy from the bedroom window. Of course, this wasn鈥檛 true 鈥� it was the faulty light switch turning the light on and off. This upset my mother greatly although she realised it had looked suspicious.

That morning my mother and I were going to have a special photo taken at a photographer鈥檚 in the city. You can imagine how that photo came out; we both looked so miserable. I still have that photo today.

When VE Day came it seemed like everyone went to the Market Place outside the City Hall. There was much merrymaking and I was a bit frightened, especially when I got one of my front teeth knocked out by the jubilant crowd.

The war had not been that bad for me. I have memories of Christmas Day with a small Christmas tree lit with real tiny candles and food that we only saw at Christmas time. We didn鈥檛 have all that much, but how appreciated it was when we got it.

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