大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War Site by Three Counties Action, on behalf of Patricia Boxford, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was born in the Luton and Dunstable hospital, in the middle of the war, on 2nd May, 1942. On the night I was born, a German plane was flying around over the hospital looking for the Electrolux factory to bomb. One of our planes went up to intercept and my mother thought 鈥淲hat a dreadful world to bring this child into.鈥� The Maternity Wards had brick blast walls built outside the windows so it was impossible to see outside.

Although very young I can remember certain things very clearly. I can remember how threadbare everything was, with green paint peeling off my cot, the blackout blinds at the windows and trips down the air-raid shelter at the bottom of the garden. This was an Anderson shelter my father erected with two benches on either side which we sometimes slept on and we drank mugs of cocoa there. I was convinced that the sirens were an Ostrich running down our garden path although I don鈥檛 know why I imagined that. On one occasion I can remember standing by the air-raid shelter and seeing my mother at the other end of the garden and thinking she would not make it to the shelter without being killed. I later had repeated nightmares that my mother was being chased by the Germans and was dragged away.

Other memories include queuing up in the shops with my mother and eating powdered egg straight out of the box, in the butchers shop. I played with my older sister and brother鈥檚 toys as my mother was unable to get me toys or a Teddy bear. My only soft toy was a woollen Zebra which a neighbour knitted for me. My father, William Bottrill, was away fighting in Italy and my mother, Dorothy, would sit me on her lap and read his letters to me. Some photographs arrived of my father skiing in Northern Italy at the end of the war and I thought this was a strange father.

V.E. Day was celebrated with a street party in our road 鈥� Alder Crescent. My mother put up bunting across the front of the house and the tables and chairs were set up outside. I can remember this well and still have the photographs which were taken. Later when I was in bed there was a big bonfire in the road and two of the neighbours (who had too much to drink) had a fight in the road but I was oblivious to this.

My mother had just 拢2. 10s. a week Army Pay, to keep herself, three children, plus a dog, chickens etc. and life was very hard for her as she had no parents or siblings to help her. My father had gone away when I was six weeks old and returned from Italy in 1946, when I was four years old. I spent all day watching him and kept asking my mother everytime I saw a man turn into our street, if that man was my father. At teatime I came indoors and at this moment my father arrived. My mother said it was a shame as I had been looking out for him all day. He had a large, white kit bag which contained masses of coloured, boiled sweets and he emptied these out onto the floor. I didn鈥檛 like this strange man who had suddenly come into our lives. My father had a nervous breakdown following the war and it was many years before I grew to love him 鈥� such was the impact of the War!

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