大象传媒

Firstly the noise level or lack of it. I am the youngest of nine having four brothers and four sisters. Coming up to the war the house was always full of noise with voices or listening to the radiogram made by my brother Bill.
He joined the Royal Artillery and we did not see him for over six years. Bill was one of those who fought back and forth in N.Africa, eventually through Italy finishing in Austria making refugee huts.
Brother Bert went to Freemantle,Australia finishing in Hong Kong - Kowloon coming home in 1946.
Brother Len was transferred from Short Bros. (makers of the seaplanes Mao and Mercury) to Swindon,Wiltshire.
My sisters, Marjorie and Dorothy had gone into "Service" and married. Betty went into the Land Army and Mildred being the youngest stayed at home with me.
You can therefore see why it struck me as very quiet when the War began.
Secondly, the positive noise level. At first I was evacuated to Sittingbourne. As I lived in Chatham
it was seen as sending us nearer the enemy. Because of the phoney war I returned to Chatham to witness the evacuation of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain.
I well remember the early raids when looking out of the air raid shelter. Dad, an ex Royal Marine was trying to count the Bombers.
One, two, three, four there are hundreds of the xxxxx. At that moment an almighty crash sounded and Dad said it was the Arethusa in Chatham Dockyard having loosened its moorings started to fire.
Another noise was from a gun placed at the end of the street. During the night raids seemed to my young mind to go on and on. To go with that noise was the constant tinkle of shrapnelhitting the roof.As the war went on there was less of that noise but the impact of some bombing was not to be forgotten. Dorothy lived in St. William's Way. Rochester, and one night a floating mine hit the edge of a concrete retaining wall near to her house. The effect was to blow the roofs off some fifty houses in a triangular shape starting accross the road from where itlanded to a peak about five streets away. I believe this can still be seen today from the different tiles on the houses. That bang was heard all over Kent.
Thirdly food. Before the war, Dad cultivated four-ten rod plots, two for flowers and two for vegetables. He now worked seven days a week and I rarely saw him in those early war years. He would rise at 5am set off at 6am for a four mile walk to work,walk home in the evening but often not reaching home before 8.30pm. We did have vegetables from the small garden and Betty's employer often gave her some of the farm produce to bring home. Rabbits and Chickens which raised for the table was our supply of meat and eggs.
One of the relieving items in our otherwise monotomous diet was to receive food parcels. My Mother had two brothers who owned a large fruit farm south west of Sydney, Australia, and the occasional parcels were received. Another source of parcels was from two uncles in the Navy. Whenever they called in Ports around the world they would send one. It was great to enjoy chewing gum, peanut butter,tinned fruit and Mum would save up the dried fruit so that we could have a Christmas pudding and cake. I suppose we had about three parcels a year and we often wondered how many had found their way into the deep from enemt action. Incidentally I learned to cook at this time. Dad, as I said worked seven days a week, but occasionally he was given a day off and if he could arrange it for a Tuesday he and Mum went to Maidstone market, Mum would lay out the dried egg, some spam and a potato and say "you will have to cook your own today as Dad and I are going to Maidstone market. I soon learned to cook at 11-12 years old under those conditions

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