大象传媒

This story as been added to The People's War Website by CSV Volunteer, Ann Toomey, on behalf of the author, Hazel Howard, who understands the site's terms and conditions.

During the War my Father was an ARP Warden and I used to go out and help him, I was 13 or 14 years old. I used to dress in dungarees. My Father had to implement emergency repairs - blocking windows etc. I used to hold things and hand them to him.

We lived in what was known as bomb alley. There was an anti aircraft gun on a rail -bogey which used to run up and down the rails.

I had a sister who was a VAD, she was older than I was, about 19 years old.

When War was declared, school was delayed for several weeks while they dug up the school lawns to make air raid shelters . I had to pick up my schoolwork so that I could do it at home. There were about 500 pupils in the school. Later in the War we had to go to shelters on Epsom Downs, they were dug into the chalk, it was always very damp and cold and I hated it.

We didn't have much fruit, but we did have dried bananas which were smaller than the bananas that we have now and were dark brown.

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