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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Margaret Waddy of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Cambridgeshire Story Gatherer Team on behalf of Veronica Doreen Mepham and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was nine when the war started. I was playing on the recreation ground on Coleridge Road and another child ran over and said, ‘The war’s started’. We thought we’d see Germans marching down the street immediately — but we didn’t.

We all got issued with gas masks and ration cards. I think the cards came from the Guildhall. We had to practise putting on the gas masks in the classroom. I was quite frightened of my mask.

The next thing was that we had an air raid. We knew they were German bombers because they made a different sound. So my mother put us in a cupboard under the stairs, with our gas masks out of their boxes and on our laps.

I was at Romsey School, then Central School on Parkside after the Eleven Plus (or whatever it was called then). We had evacuees in our home in Hobart Road — a mother and two boys from East London. It was a bit difficult — my mother was a widow and had to go to work to keep us all. She cleaned for people. In those days there weren’t many jobs for women. She couldn’t work in a factory because she had to be at home for us children.

My friend Beryl Denier and I used to tap-dance. We did all sorts of shows. At the end of the war there were loads of street parties and we got invited to them all.

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