大象传媒

This is Pat Adams story, it has been added by Kathleen Pounder with permission from the author, who understands the terms and conditions of adding her story to the website.

I was born here in Margate. When the war started in 1939 I was standing outside the house in Dane Valley when a warden came along wearing a helmet and blowing his whistle, well I'd never seen this before and I thought he was a German.
I'd only been to school for ten days when I came down whooping cough and that was it until 1942 when the schools started again.
There was quite a few children evacuated and when my dad came out of hosiptal and we had to move forward into town I only played with boys. I was the only girl for about 7 or 8 boys. We used to play dressing up or conkers, we never got into mischief, well not the sort that got the police involved.
We usually played on the street, we didn't dare go too far away in case the siren went.
When we lived in the valley we spent many a good hour down the air raid shelter, the Anderson Shelter in the garden.
We spent many a night down there the four of us, me, my mum, my nan and my aunt. You could hear the planes going overhead and where we lived you could see the stars, you could see the Battle of Britain going on above your head. I don't remember being scared, I think as you get older you get more scared, sometimes you feel scared and you just don't go there.
Most of the children were evacuated to the Midlands until 1942 when they came back and thats when the schools started up again. Until then my dad taught me my numbers and ABC and that was it. You had to try and catch up when you got to school.
I had to help my mum around the house, do a few chores to get my pocket money. I didn't go to the shops on my own, I wasn't allowed. Northdown Rd Margate was like a ghost town. We lived at Hartford Rd in the valley at first and then we moved to Victoria Avenue in 1941 and I've lived there ever since.
At the outbreak of war dad was building the pillboxes, after that he went back to work in the gas works, he went at 9 o'clock on the Monday and by 12 he had this accident. He was cleaning out the purifiers and this marble slab fell on his leg. He was in hospital for three months and an outpatient for six months and it was nearly a year before he went back to work. He did go back to the gas company. If it wasn't for that he would have been in the war.
He was an orderly in the medical corps before the war.
We registered at a shop at the bottom of Kent Rd. Once you had registered you had to stay with them unless you moved. We registered with a butcher as well. Liver and Offal you could buy on a Tuesday and a Friday down at Knightons in the Market Place. You had to be there by six in the morning come rain or shine. I used to go with my mum during the holidays. Pigs trotters and liver, we used to buy them and then go round the corner and swap them about a bit.
We were lucky because at Christmas time Mrs Farmer kept things back during the year. Each customer got jelly or blancmange or a tin of fruit, something like that. We had that every Christmas during the war. She never put it on show or anything.
I was especially lucky because my uncle was a baker at Colemans the bakers at the top of the High Street. He made me a cake for my birthday, it was only a sponge and I suppose it was synthetic icing but I enjoyed it.
I was ten when the war ended and it felt good because we could go places, we could go on the beach.
I can't remember what I was doing when the end of the war was announced, it just came on the radio. Everybody had a radio then it was like a lifeline.
We had a radio alright, my dad had built it and it made such a squawk squawk on a Sunday morning. Mother said that she would get rid of it and she did, she sold it to Henry's on Marine Terrace and we got a voucher for a new one which was much better.I don't remember any of the programmes but I do know that when the news was on you didn't dare make s noise.
I remember being out on the street and hearing the doodle bugs cpme over and when they stopped we dived for cover wondering where they were going to come down.
Mother had a sewing machine and if she got scraps of material she would make our clothes, she made me dresses and the like.
My grandparents kept chickens and rabbits in the backgarden, so we did have eggs and either rabbit or chicken at Christmas. I remember one Christmas dad wanted a chicken and grandad said "if you want it you can pluck it" so dad plucked it and put the feathers in the dustbin,unfortunately shortly after he was clearing out the fire grate and put the ashes in the bin, minutes later there was a kerfuffle because the bin was on fire. Dad had put hot ashes on the feathers and they had caught light. Oh I can remember the smell it was terrible.
My mum could never teach me to knit; my dad taught me when he came out of the hospital. For the three months he was there, he knitted scarves for the army.
One night we was in the air raid shelter and 'course the only light we had was the candles we was all knitting away, my aunt coughs and blows all the candles out. The black out was good, I remember shouting out 'Put that light out' once and they did.
There was a lady up our road, she was interned, but not for long. I don't know what happened to her when she came out, you didn't ask questions like that you just got on with things.
There was a victory party up at the school on Lalham Road. I'm not sure if it was the New Zealanders or the Berkshire regiment that was stationed there and that's where we had the party in the gardens. The whole street was there.

Pat Adams
11/5/2004

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