大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Richard Jackson on behalf of Frank Palmer and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Palmer fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions

I was seven years old when war was declared, and lived with my mother at the eastern end of Penhale Road, Fratton. My father was a Chief Yeoman of signals in the Royal Navy and had sailed in HMS Danae during the summer of 1939.

The construction of an Anderson shelter in our garden had been a passing novelty. The collection of aluminium saucepans; watching workmen cutting down iron railings from forecourts; and the appearance of a pig swill trailer in Renny Road seemed worthy contributions to the war effort. But then I discovered that a bomb had fallen alongside the school I had attended until July 1939 and the true horror of war was brought home to me. As we walked past the scene I was amazed to see one of the khaki ambulances usually parked alongside the school (now a first aid post) was nestling in the roof of one of the nearby houses!

The air raids intensified towards the end of 1940 but we were unable to use the shelter because it was flooded. Instead we pushed the dining room table against the stair wall and spent many an hour squatting under it with our fingers in our ears. Mum used to put mats against the doors to stop the draught, but she got so cross when a mobile AA gun stopped at the corner and fired because the blast sent the mats flying and she had to put them all back.

Eventually, our shelter was made waterproof and we were able to use it. I vaguely remember being turfed out of bed in the middle of the night and making my way half asleep into the garden. My old cot was the 'settee' along with the chair used to get in and out. Candlelight provided eerie illumination and 'heating' was provided by a cnalde in a flower pot with another pot upside down on top.

I recall there being a pipeline laid in the gutter along Fratton Road to provide sea water for firefighting, and a prefabricated concrete static water tank was built in the road a few doors along from us.

Savagely censored letters from my father arrived in batches, but there were long periods of waiting in between each batch. My mother kept our spirits up with the saying "no news is good news". On reflection it must have been horrible being a telegraph boy in those days, judging by the scene I witnessed when one visited a neighbour.

My father eventually returned from the far east in the summer of 1942 and spent the remainder of the war instructing in Rosyth. I only recall one occasion when he was at home for an air raid. He got my mother and me into the shelter but stayed outside talking to the warden. Then an incendiary bomb fell on a house on the opposite side of the road. The AFS were quickly on the scene, but unfortunately one of the firemen fell off his ladder and broke his arm. Dad rushed indoors and raided his precious stock of rum to combat the man's shock with a 'tot' until the first aiders arrived.

I shall always be thankful for my father's safe return and regularly, on his behalf, attend the naval war memorial to remember his best friend, Billy Lawes, who was lost on HMS Hood.

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