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鈥淭his story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Jan Hewett, a volunteer from 大象传媒 Three Counties Action at the Glen Miller Concert, Twin Woods on behalf of Sylvia Buckoke and has been added to this site with his/her permission. The person fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.鈥�

Sylvia Buckoke
Hemel Hemstead

Announcement of War

I was in school when the war started. We had Chamberlain on the radio. The local garage would charge the radio up with an accumulator. Even now I can hear Chamberlain saying 鈥� We are now at war鈥� An hour later this siren sounded. We children were terrified and rushed for our gas masks, which we had only just been issued with and trained on. You had to put your two thumbs in to stretch the rubber so it was a tight fit. They smelt dreadful. We waited breathless for everything to drop on us, but it was a false alarm.
We forgot about the war half the time. That is until the Germans started to bomb London. There was a total blackout, no lights. We would lie in bed my sister and I and watch the searchlights and the glow of London burning and hear the ack, ack, ack of the gunfire.
We often had stray bombs drop on Hemel. We often had our lessons in a shelter. We had to take newspapers with us because I was so cold and we could sit on the newspapers. You couldn鈥檛 learn much in a shelter it was so cold and damp and so we learnt singing.

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