大象传媒

When the War started,I was just 11, convalescing in Guernsey after having had my tonsils and adenoids out, staying with relatives (who were to enduire the hardships of the GermaN Occupation). My Aunt and I travelled back home early, the ship escorted on the horizon by a naval vessel.
My Father wass called up in the first week of the War, since, although then 44, he had been on the RAF Reserve after serving in the 1sr World War in the Royal Field Artillery in France and Salonika, and then in the RFC and FRAF, again in France, in a bomber, being shot down and a prisoner for the last few months of that EWar. He was away from home for most of the 2nd World War.
I lived with my Parents and older Brpther at Twickenham, on the Thames southwest of London. From the upstairs windows of the house, we had a clear view over our garden and field beyondsoonn to become allotments towards London, so at times had a grandstand view of the aerial acitivity - searchlights patterning the sky and bursts of AA fir with its distinctive sound s ( I sill dont like the sound fof firewordks.
I started that autumn at myu secondary school, a modern buiklding 2and a half miles away, where I used to treavel by trollwybus or bicycle, and continued thwere througfht the whol mof the War, fopr although Cousinsd in Canada had offered to share their home with my Brother and me, my Parents decided, ok,me the King and Queen that we shoudl stay together as a Family.
During1939 my Father had duig an air-raid shelter in the garden, covering it with grass taken from the lawn, that patch beoming a kitchen garden. The shelter was lined with wood, having seats and room for 4-6 people.I th+
ink we used it only once, as early in the War an unexploded AA shell landed in the roof and had to be removed by soldiers. Our otgher pereparationsincluded providing black-out linings for all the cur5tains, the windows also having strips of sticky brown paper on them. Our car was put up on blicks in the garage and remained there the shole of the duration - and worked afterwards. - being sold about 1947 for twice wat it cost.
When the bombingh started in earnest in the Autumn of 1940, we used to sleep downstairs on mattresses underneath neavy furniture, and one night in the Spring of 12941, when the bombing was particularly close, my Mothem Aunt and I huddled in the supboard under tghe stairs. We lost our sindows everal times, but luckily np o serious structural damage.
The blackout was intense and we were very careful not to show any lights- the Air Raid Wardens ensured that. In the winter evenings we listened a los to the radio, ITMA being a particular favourite, and we youngsters used to exchange favourite catchwords and phrases in the same way tha t we used to swap pieces of shrapnel found in the streets - horrid jagged bits of metal. My Mother passed her British Red Cross First Aid exams, became a Fire-Wartcher, learning how ot operate a stirrup pump, and ,ater was called up to do war work, assemboing small radio parts, earning 1s.6d. an hour, from which she managed to save enough to buy a bicycle - which sghe still rode when in her 70s. At fiorst we carried gas-masks everywhere
Wehad a bad night of bombing with incendiaried, and I rememvbwer well my Mother dashing outside to douse with earth some that fallen, fortunately, in the garden (I still have tghe little hand-shovel she used), and for a long time we kept the tail-fin of one incendiary bomb. That sem nightfrom the upstairs window I saw the roof of a house across 5the field in flames, put out eventually by the Fire Brigade.
For m,ost of the War, things seemed to go on working r3easonably well - we travclled up to London ocdasionally, the swindows of the trains, including th34e Unsderground, being covered with sticky net crrtaining to prevent th4 glass shattering. We looked out for the Fougasse posters"Careless Talk Cosrts Lives". The nesw[apars arriv ed and the post, and tradesmen called. Altho7ugh food wzas rationed, and some items like oranges and bananas were unobtinable, we neber we4nt short - I thing my NMother was very clever at mana ging it all: I remember the ration books and the little coupons eith crosse4d off or cut out. I look today at the pat of butter on the butter-dish and think that that amount had to last my Mother and me a whole week. Weused to take supplenmemts of Rose Hip Syrup and Cod Lover and Malt. I still know my Identity Neumber and thave the little inscribed meddallion I wore with my name and number on it,. When the field behind the house was turned into allotments, we "Dug For Victopry"and grew a lot of vegetables and some fruitt. The only thing was was sometimes diffult was obtainign coke and coal for the boiler and fires - no central heating then. We use to save National Savings stamps and I helped run the Group at school, and Twickenham organised a collection to provide a Spitfire, with ther,mometer in the town centre showing the target and progress.
Early in 1944 at a nearby school, I volunteered to hpelp pack small items in waxed apaper and put in cartons, I jhsuppowe tfor military supplies, and at school we held an exercise to fee d lotsd of people - huge pans of ricde with cdried fruit.
Aerial activity gradually bacame less troublersome until on morning the beginning of June 1944 when the sky seems ed full of large aircraft and glideerszx : what a sight. I knew something special was happening - the Invasion ahad begun. About the sme time, ther were strange aircraft with a distinctive sound and when the eng9ine stopped, a n explosion followed ver6y soon after: the "piklotless planes" the doodlebusg had astarted. At night one could follow the light of their engines across the sky, AND ONE DAY FORM MY BEDROOM WINDOW, i SAW ONE APPROACHING: THE INGINE STOPPED, IT DIVED DOWN TO EARTH AND A MUSHROOM-SHAPED HEAT SHIMMER ROSE UP - THEN i DIVED UNDER THE BED: JUST AS WELL, FOR THEWINDOW SHATTER INWARDDS. tHAT FBOMB LANDED ON A PUB ABOUT 1 QUARTER OF A MILE AWAY AND KILLED SEVERAL PEOPLE.
mY SCHOOL CERTIFICATE EXAMS WERE ABOUT TO SRART AND IT WAS DECIDED TO HOLD THEM IN THE DOWNSTAIRS CORRIDORS WHICH WERE REINFORCED WITH WOODED N BEAMS, BLAST DOORS AND SANDB AGS, SO OUR DESKS WERE RANGED ALONG EITHER WALL - ONCE WE HAD TO KNEEL UNDER THEM WHEN A DOODLEBUG WAS HEARD APPROACHIONG.

aT FIRST TO ME THE WAR SEEMED QUYITE EXCITING. iT WASNT UNTIL i WAS ODER AND FELLOWS IN THE ROAD DIEDNT RETNRN THAT THE SAWFULNESS OF IT ALL HIT ME.
oNE mAY AFTERNOON IN 1945 WHEN I WAS CYCLING HOME FROM SCHOOL, I HEARD a loudspeaker ceclaring what Germany was sueing for pearce: the EWAR IN eUROPE WAS OVER - A FEELING OF RELIEF AND UNREALITY.
mY bROTHER, BY THAT TIME IN THE rOYAL aIR fORCE, AFTER HAVING SERVED IN THE aRMY cADET fORCE, THE HOME GUARD AND ENROLLED IN THE ROUYA; AOR FPRCE RESERVE VOLUNTTER COMMANDED THE RAF CONTINGENT IN THE VICTORY PARADE IN HEREFORD. ON VE-DAY WITH MY PARENTS AND A FRIEND, WE WENT UP TO LLONDON TO JOIKN IN THE CELEBRATIONS. I TYHINH ONR OG YHR
MOST MARVELLOUS SIGHTS I HAVE EVER SEEN WAS THE UNION JACK, FLOODLIT, FLUTTERING IN THE NIGHT BREEZE ON THE TOP OF THE VICTORIA TOWER OF THE HOIUSES OF PARIAMENT. THE NUCL.EAR BOMBS AND THE SURRENDER OF JAPAN FOLLOWED 3 MONTHS LATER. SO PEACE RETURNED AFTER SIX LONG NEVER-TO-BE-FORGOTTEN YEARS.
APOLOGIES FOR THE TYPUNG ERRORS.