´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Stephanie from Bodsham Primary School and has been added to the website on behalf of Patricia Jean Wood with her permission and they fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

I was just over three years old when war was declared and nine when it ended. My father worked in the Admiralty Offices at Chatham Dockyard which were re located to Kingston, Jamaica in the West Indies so my mother, baby brother and I moved to Waltham, Nr. Canterbury to live with my Gran.

I remember that when the sirens sounded my brother and I were sent under the dining room table to play until the all clear went; if the raid was very close then as a family we used to stand in the passage which went through the middle of the bungalow with our backs pressed against the wall.

I went to Waltham Primary School from the age of five where schooling was frequently interrupted and we all trooped into the purposely built brick air raid shelter (no windows of course|) until it was safe to come out again.

When gas masks were introduced (these you had to carry with you where ever you went) a van similar to the mobile dentist called at the school and we all had to don our gas masks and walk through the van to make sure no gas seeped into the mask.

There were frequently lorry loads of or marching soldiers passing through the village as there were various gun and search-light emplacements round about, one being by The Lord Nelson Public House, when the guns were fired it was quite noisy and when it was dark the sparks from the explosions were like fireworks. The army had also taken over Waltham Court as a Billet.

We frequently witnessed ‘dog fights’ overhead between spitfires and the German planes especially while hop picking with my mother. During the war years we saw a number of planes hit and the crews baling out.

The Doodle bugs were very frightening with the flame from the tail and the awful chugging noise they made but worse still was if the noise stopped for you knew then that they were about to crash, one actually did come down into woodland about half a mile behind our bungalow.

I also remember when Canterbury was bombed in the Baedeker Raids, we all stood in our kitchen in the dark and could see seven miles away the flames and glow as the bombs hit. Later on in the war we stood in the front garden and watched hundreds of planes towing gliders pass overhead going to invasion of the Rhine, one of the gliders got separated from its plane it was steered away and finally landed at Bodsham Farm between the pub and Podlinge.

Although food was rationed we never went hungry, being in the country we grew our own fruit and vegetables, also kept rabbits and chicken which supplemented the meat ration and kept us in eggs.

When walking to school or playing we were always looking out for ‘treasures’ such as the Tinfoil streamers which I believe were dropped to confuse the radar, also pieces of aeroplane glass, shrapnel and spent bullets which all of us children used to collect.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.