大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War Website by a volunteer from Brighton on behalf of Michael Dixon and has been added to the site with his permission. Michael Dixon fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Money was very short in our house, as my father was away with the Royal Artillery and didn't send any money home. Mum would dress my brother and I in the tattiest clothes, and send us up the road to beg from the Canadian soldiers who went to a cafe there. When I was four years old however, my brother and I were taken away from our mother. A man in a black suit and bowler hat and a woman in a grey suit, her hair in a tight bun, put us both in a black car and drove us to the orphanage at Tunbridge Wells.

At the orphanage bath night was a communal affair, with 6 tubs in the bathroom. One evening when we were bathing there was a rat-a-tat-tat of aircraft fire coming from somewhere nearby. We all raced to the window, which was taped up, and could see a fighter plane trying to disable a doodlebug. The fighter pilot then tried to get close enough with its wings to flip the doodlebug off course. In the end it did land in Tunbridge Wells, but thankfully not on the orphanage. Later in the War it was decided to move the orphanage to Birkenhead, but once we got there the bombs started dropping in that area too, and so it was back to Tunbridge Wells!

I can also remember as a child being told never to pick up a fountain pen left lying in the street. As we were told that Hitler was planning to drop pens that would explode if you picked them up.

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