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Back Home In Ramsgate
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A new phase of life, but the war very much in evidence. Troops everywhere - Army, Airforce, Navy. We had no immediate access to the sea front. Pathways which had led down to the sands had gaping holes blown into them, to prevent enemy troops having an easy entry to the mainland. Roads were blocked, the harbour, now taken over by the military, was out of bounds to all civilians.

The noise of torpedo boats and air-sea-rescue vessels was sometimes deafening. Empty houses were taken over for billeting troops. Army trucks and truck-driven vehicles charged up and down roads, the latter churning up tarmac roads when turning. During this hive of military activity — and with Menston RAF station about 3 miles out of town, we had to try and live as normal a life as possible. Housewives had to register at a specific grocery shop, milk companies were zoned for deliveries to save fuel. Queues would arise suddenly outside shops and folk would join them, not knowing what was being sold! It could have been sweets, for which we were allocated points which must not be exceeded within a month, or offal which was not rationed or a special delivery of oranges which were reserved for young children. In spite of all this, my parents were still able, miraculously, to entertain military personnel for a meal after an evening service at church — and at other times. A break from barracks life.

Until 1944 we had sporadic air raids — day or night. If it were during the day, we school children had to snatch a book to read and go down the school air-raid entrance in our playground which led into the town’s network of underground shelters. We hated these dank, smelly places — seated on benches — and on one occasion a friend and I refused to go down. When the Headmistress discovered us we were punished by being sent home from school early. Not a terrible hardship.

If the air- raid was at night, some folk would go into a garden Anderson Shelter : others, like ourselves, would pray for safety and wait for the ‘all — clear’ siren to sound. Others, of course, were sleeping soundly in bunks under the town.

Whatever the night, we children were expected to be at school in good time the following morning. However we learnt anything, I do not know, but in the end — Summer 1944 — eight of us managed to pass our School Certificate Examination — one boy having highest marks in Maths in all England. Well done ‘Dinah’! (Reg Dines).

As D-Day neared, we were aware that something was in the offing — extra personnel around including marines on mini motor bikes — hundreds of vehicles lined up on sides of roads — even auxiliary firemen brought down from Yorkshire. This was partly due for defence but also partly due to act as a decoy because the main offensive was launched from the Southampton area. We school children were alerted of the events of 6th June 1944, by the air raid siren sounding soon after our arriving at school when we were kept below all the morning, allowed home for lunch, then back underground all the afternoon till home time. No work that day!

Next day we learnt the reason — the Normandy landings — ‘The beginning of the end’ as Churchill put it. Doodle-bugs (flying bombs) throbbed overhead on their way to London (rarely dropping on Ramsgate) V.2 bombs attacked us and neighbouring towns — unannounced. Cross Channel shells were our biggest problem — aimed randomly at times — at other times over-shooting a passing convoy of ships moving towards the Straits of Dover. On one such night the local fish and chip shop was hit and the little boy who I had passed each day going to his school was no more — sadly suffocated in his basement by a fractured gas main.

Many other stories could be recounted but praise be to God, V.E. Day arrived in May 1945 and Church bells were allowed to ring again. Services of thanksgiving were impromptly arranged and everyone rejoiced. V.J. Day had to wait another 3 months.

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