大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People's War site by CSV Storygatherer Jane Chanter on behalf of Josephine Ann Tapper. The story has been added to the site with her permission and Josephine Ann Tapper fully understands the terms and conditions of the site. (The story was actually put in writing by her husband Philip John Tapper on her behalf with her full permission as is confirmed by her signature).

My wife Josephine was born in 1938 in Enfield, Middlesex. Around 1941 she remembers her father having the upright piano pulled away from the inside wall of the lounge to make space to shelter the family during an air raid and also remembers being taken from her bed in an eiderdown to be safely put in that space night after night. The German planes were seeking out Trent Park - home of the Enigma Coding Machine and used to pass over the house on the way.

V1 and 2 rockets or Doodlebugs as she called them were often seen passing overhead. One night a house down the road was demolished by one and the houses both sides were left standing apart from broken windows. Doors and windows rattled in the area but no other damage. She can remember one incident quite clearly - seeing a Doodlebug overhead whilst she was out playing on her little tricycle, hearing the engine cut out and somebody's father gathering her up and her bike and running with her to a house and being put into a Morrison shelter in the dining room which quickly filled up with more children and adults. She never knew where the rocket landed. After the all clear the children went out to play again.

Her father used to grow his own vegetables in the back garden and he also had a few chickens so food was not really in short supply. Pilchards and beetroot used to be eaten a lot she recalls. The tinned pilchards were Cornish. One afternoon she went with her mother on the bus to a greengrocers in Southgate because someone had said there were some oranges about and they queued for about one hour for two oranges.

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