大象传媒

鈥淭his story was submitted to the People's War website by Jill Helps with help from Rebekkah Abraham on the behalf of London CSV. The story has been added to the site with the author's permission and she understands the site's terms and conditions."

I was a child during the war, and what follows are just a few of my memories of the war years.

We slept in the cupboard under the stairs for 4 years, It was the best protection in case a bomb fell. I remember I quite enjoyed it, as the wall behind my back was where our neighbour鈥檚 fire grate was, so throughout the night I had a warm hot water bottle behind my back!

As a child I remember the sounds of the bombs. In our school playground we had an air raid shelter. One day we heard a whine which we knew to be a bomb. It was a tremendous whine overhead. Even the teachers screamed. However it wasn鈥檛 a bomb, but the sound of a German airplane crashing. It crashed into the grounds of the nearby lunatic asylum. For many years after the propeller of the plane was displayed in the local police station at Fishpond.

I remember having a gas mask as a child. They were issued in cardboard boxes with a piece of string attached to allow you to carry them. However some children had leatherette cases for their gas masks and therefore your gas mask case soon became an indication of social status!! Luckily I had a leatherette case!

As well as food rationing there was clothes rationing - each family received clothes coupons. I must have been about 7 years old and was going to dancing classes. I was chosen to be in the dancing display as a milkmaid. I needed to around a yard of material to make the milkmaid dress, but my mother wouldn鈥檛 use the clothes coupons to buy the material!! I was so disappointed and cried for days! However the next year my mother relented and bought the material so I was able to be in the display!

It must have been around 3 o鈥檆lock one night, during the middle of an air raid. My mother was in the kitchen making Christmas pudding. 鈥淢y father said 鈥榞et under the stairs woman!鈥� My mother鈥檚 reply was 鈥淚 don鈥檛 care! If my time鈥檚 come, my time鈥檚 come! I鈥檓 still going to make my Christmas pudding!鈥�.

I used to go home from school to have lunch. One day there was an air raid as I was walking home. Instead of taking cover in one of the public air raid shelters along the side of the road, I stood watching the skies, mesmerised by the squadrons of planes flying overhead. When I got home I told my mother of the planes and she was wild with me for not taking shelter, for of course they were not British planes but German ones. It turned out that they were going to bomb the Rittom Air Company. As the German planes flew over the factory, all the workers were leaving the factory to go to the canteens for lunch. The German planes opened fire and gunned down the workers. My father worked there and luckily survived, but he saw many killed that day.

During the war many bought and sold on the Black Market. Butchers would try and get meat off the local farmers and sell it on the Black Market, which of course was illegal due to rationing. Unfortunately our butcher was caught and he and the farmer were sent to prison. My mother said it should be the housewives who were sent to prison, as it was they who the butchers were doing it for!

We had a lodger staying with us. He was a lorry driver and would often bring home bits and pieces, mainly food which my mother would share with the neighbours. One day he brought back a huge bag of rice off the back of a lorry! The bag broke, so we poured all the rice into the bath. My job was to put the rice into small bags, around a pound each. However we had been quite busy so we didn鈥檛 have time to put it in bags until a few days later. We noticed that there were things crawling amongst the grains in the bath. They were maggots!! We ended up having to burying all the rice in the garden!!

I vividly remember VE Day. I was at Grammar School. We had just come out, and I clearly remember walking down the stairs. One of the mistresses came running up to me and said 鈥渉ave you heard? The war鈥檚 over!鈥�. That evening I had gone to bed at my usual time. That night at around midnight, my mother woke me up. 鈥淕et dressed鈥� she said, 鈥渃ome see what鈥檚 happening outside鈥�. We went out and in the street there was a huge bonfire in the middle of the main road. Everybody was fuelling it with anything they could find 鈥� chairs, tables.

That is all of the few things I can remember. Not much, just few childhood memories.

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