大象传媒

Evacuated and Looting

We lived right on the sea front, at Great Yarmouth. My father was the Harbour-Master at Gorleston-on-Sea. Previously when we briefly left our home, we were evacuated to Devon with my mother and brothers and sisters, but as soon as the Battle of Britain was over, we went back to Great Yarmouth and found only four families were left in the road out of 50 houses. These houses had unfortunately been looted.

Lead for our wooden Submarines

As young children we did not realise the seriousness of the war, but as children do, we made up our own amusements. We were living at Gorleston-on-Sea, and we found that we were able to keep ourselves very well occupied, though probably not always as we should. Unfortunately, we could not go exploring on the beach as the beach was mined. Instead we got onto the roofs, and stole the lead for weighting for our wooden submarines!

Recycling and Salvage

Then when a plane was shot down near us we used to collect the parts, aluminium parts, hydraulic piping, Perspex, and cannon shells out of the gun magazines. Though this was only from German aircraft. With the Perspex we found we gave it to the German PoW鈥檚 who worked in the nearby farms. They made broaches and ornaments out of it. Out of Aluminium piping we made pea-shooters for our school friends.

Playtime and Peace

From the shells we found, we dug out the cordite. Then, we put in between two half inch bolts, with a nut in between. We used to pack the cordite into the nut and drop onto the ground hard and it made a lovely bang!

When VE Day came, the first we heard was all the ships in the harbour hooting with deep booms, and excitement was everywhere. Dad took us around the harbour in the car and with great glee we went back home. We had proper blackout screens which my father had someone make for us rather than curtains. We took them down and made a huge bonfire out of them. It was a symbolic and cathartic release of the constraints of war. The austerity of the war period was over and it meant we could now look to the future with optimism.

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