大象传媒

War time snapshots

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I was ten years old when war was declared. My father had a grocer鈥檚 shop in Worcester Park.
I remember vividly that Sunday morning when was declared, when we gather round the wireless to listen to Neville Chamberlain鈥� broadcast. The thing that impressed me was that my mother cried andI didn鈥檛 understand why. Almost immediately there was an air raid warning. Convinced of an imminent gas attack, we scuttled down to the cellar of the grocer鈥檚 shop where we lived, put on our gas masks and left behind my favourite dinner which my mother had just put on to cook. It was a false alarm!

After that, for some time, life was fairly normal. I started at my school three weeks later that I had expected, so that the shelters could be completed. We had lessons by post for three weeks.

In May 1940. I went to out to tea with a friend. During the meal, we heard on the wireless that Hitler had invaded Holland and Belgium. I knew those countries were just across the \channel and I was terrified that England would be invaded before I could get home. I made some feeble excuse and ran as fast as my legs would carry me.

That winter, during the Blitz, we slept in the cellar with two neighbouring families. We had, in fact, very little sleep! Every night was a party! A tall, handsome lad of sixteen taught us all kinds of games which we played long into the night. It was so exciting that I hardly noticed the guns firing or the bombs dropping! No-one ever said 鈥済o to bed鈥� It was usually well after midnight whe, at last, I went, exhausted to my deck-chair which took the pplace of a bed. My father never came down to the cellar. He stayed in his bed, saying that if a bomb had his name on it, he would be killed anyway.

The next morning, of course, there was school. We were in and out of the shelters a lot that winter. At first, there were no lights, so we sang songs and played cats-cradle. Then lights were installed and lessons resumed. I well remember a physics teacher trying to do the 鈥淏allard Ring鈥� experiment, using a cigarette lighter to heat the ring.

The next big event was the arrival of the doodlebugs. Unlike my friends, I was never evacuated. By this time we had left the shop and were living in a nearby bungalow. Every night we walked over to the shelters of a nearby school, carrying our bedding, me with my hair in curlers! As before, life was one big party! I can only remember seeing one doodlebug at night, though of course we heard hundreds pass over; the engine cutting out, the ominous silence followed by a land bang. In one way I was grateful to the doodlebugs as they prevented me doing a dreaded art exam 鈥� art was my worst subject.

Our bungalow soon became very crowded as a family from our road whose house had been destroyed, came to live with us.

Their coming changed my life 鈥� but that鈥檚 another story!

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