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This is an edited transcription of an interview held at Gillingham Library, (Kent,) on July 7th. 2005

My father, who was a railway man, left my mother at the beginning of the war to bring up seven kids on her own. I was born in November 1931 so I was 8 years old at the start of the war.

Some of my distant relations were lost, in what they call the Russian convoys.

One time when we were walking around Gillingham, by the Avenue Nightclub, the Germans swept down with a machine gun just along the wall, the pilot was only playing with us. He had motorcycle goggles on — (they go round the side of your head - I’ve got some at home like that.) We waved at him.

Then the most terrifying thing of all was the bombing raid at the Luton Arches, (Chatham.) - they were all around us. Several of my friends got killed; about half of them round there got killed by that one. We had two or three flying bomb attacks. I remember one that crashed in a house in Downsview Road, Chatham - we went down to see that one.

Also, I saw the Gillingham bus station in Nelson Road, Gillingham hit by a bomb on the night of 27/28 August, 1940; and I remember a Spitfire that was shot down in the wilds of Upchurch and Halstow. They found it three or four years ago. It was so wild out there - but eventually they found the plane and traced who the pilot was by some stuff he had on him and also by doing a DNA test on him.

We used to watch the doodlebugs fly over, and when the engine stopped, you never used to know which way they were going to come down. A bomb landed in Quinnell Street in Rainham, I can’t remember whether it was a rocket or a bomb, but it came down on several of the houses. We were at the beginning of the lane and heard the police cars.

I saw the railway bridge between Rainham and Newington, Kent, that was hit by a VI rocket after a Spitfire had managed to tip its wing - to stop the VI getting to London. Sadly a train was wrecked when it came to the hole created by the crashed rocket in the railway bridge. (August 16th, 1944 — ed.)

Our family was going to be sent away (evacuated), but I didn't want to go. So we all went to stay in London. My mum used to say that if there was a bomb we’d get away with it, we had bombs all round us, I was terrified. We stayed near Hammersmith I think it was somewhere on the river there near King’s Road, Chelsea, and it was terrible. We saw people getting the dead out of bomber houses after air raids. I’ve never forgotten what I saw in London as the result of the bombing raids, arms and legs, and the stench of dead bodies — it was horrible.

You didn’t know who was missing, there were so much movement in London at the time, with people going to the theatre and coming back or going to war. You’d just carry on, but the bodies were the worst, I don’t know whether they actually traced them all in the end. So many used of them were killed by the bombs.

When we went out and about we were very lucky, we got away with it. When we went on the trains I don’t know how we got there, because there used to be restrictions as to where you could go and couldn’t go. We had identity cards

On the sea wall were huge concrete blocks round there for defense. I remember when the Germans were shot down over Rainham - they used to come down in black parachutes and all the farmers used to go for their pitchforks — you used a pitchfork in those days. Then they (the Germans) would say they didn’t want to fight but if they didn’t fight then their family was executed.

The POWs were housed in the Sittingbourne area, in old army barracks I think, and there were also some at Maidstone, but we weren’t allowed to go there in those days. The Barracks had white fencing - the old barracks are still there, I can remember. The Italian Prisoners of War had to build the old prefabs and the roads up along the Seaview Estate out towards Rainham.

My sister was in the army and was posted down in Sittingbourne. My mother went over to take her back there once and she got stranded, and a kind man brought her back in his car - you had petrol rations in those days. My sister used to go out with an Italian who fought in the war.

I remember the Yanks coming over, of course they flirted with all the girls but they used to give us sweets and gum, you know.

We used to go out tracking looking for shrapnel we found guns, beautiful ones with shiny metal. We used to have a butterfly bomb. They were dangerous. Some of my friends used to get them — I don’t know where they got them from, they had them for years — I don’t know whether they’ve still got them. Some of them collected grenades - and they exploded them!

Then we heard the news that came over about concentration camps. I won’t go deep into that but it tore us to pieces, we used to see it on the newsreels in the cinemas.

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