大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from 大象传媒 Radio Berkshire's CSV Action Desk on behlaf of Joan Richards and has been added to the site with her permission. Joan fully understands the site's terms and conditions".

During the battle of Britain in 1940 I was seven years old. I was watching the airplanes over head, the enemy aircraft, and my father came out and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was watching the planes playing in the sky. He said they are not playing and said " Get in doors young lady they are fighting you could be hurt of killed by shrapnel". So I went inside and waited till they had finished.

At first we didn't get the sirens until the planes were overhead. Later on when the sirens were a bit more organised as plane flew across from France they would relay the message across Kent to London. we were living in bomb alley as many of the planes were heading up to London. What bombs they couldn't drop in London as they went back across towards France they would just drop them anywhere and we had a few in Chatham.

The siren used to go off day and night, at first I thought we'd get killed, it was very frightening.

I remember being evacuated to Faversham in Kent and they called us back after 6 months and said they were going to send us to Wales. I didn't know where Wales was so I told my parents if they sent me there I would run away. So my father asked if I could go to Scarborough to stay with my Gran but they wouldn't let me go so I stayed in Kent.

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