大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Plymouth Library Services on behalf of Sylvia Allen. The author fully understands the terms and conditions of the website.

I was about eight years old in 1939 when the Second World War started, going to Hyde Park Junior School. I lived in a small village, just outside of Plymouth, and had to walk to school every day.

The air raid shelter was built over the playground; it did not have enough room for all the children in it, so I had to run through the streets to a fellow pupil's home to use their shelter. She lived about five minutes from the school. I remember it was very frightening during my four years at that school.

I then attended a school that had two classrooms, at the cricket pavilion by the Argyle football ground. They were nice days. While I was there, Lady Astor visited and brought along chocolates, bananas and oranges, from the USA, for all the pupils. I had never seen an orange or banana before. That was a good time.

By the time the war was over, I had left school and had a job in a chemist's shop in Westwell Street. It was then that I first saw what damage had been done to our lovely city centre.

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