Wartime Memories

   I was very fortunate to be evacuated to this beautiful village at the beginning of World War Two. I remember being lined up in the village hall with about fifteen other evacuees. My elder sister was with me, she was eight years old and I was five. My future mum and dad was to be Mr and Mrs Parker, I can't find words to express what wonderful and caring people they were. I stayed there for about four years, during that time Mr Parker passed away. I still have fond memories of standing by the graveside holding his beloved dog Patch. My mother and father came and joined us in 1944 at the end of the war. We found a little cottage in Prideaux just through the Luxulyan valley. During my time with the Parkers I became a member of the choir at the beautiful village church, and me being me would sing out of tune on purpose, so the vicar would make me pump the organ which consisted of a long wooden handle that had to be pumped without stopping. Great times. We all returned back to London around about 1945. In 1960 I became a London cabbie wich I did for 45 years I have since retired and I am now 75 years old, but they were the very fond moments. I have been back to visit the village and the grave of dear Mr and Mrs Parker to whom I will be grateful to for the rest of my life.  

   In 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War my father was sent to London aerodrome, from Cornwall, to repair bombers and fighter planes. I was born in Cornwall in December 1940 and my mother wanting to be with her husband took me to Send, where father had managed to get a shared accommodation with another family in a bungalow in Tannery Lane. I think the bungalow and others have all been pulled down and new houses built there since the war. Father built an underground air raid shelter with bunks in it and every time the siren went off in the village we had to jump out of the bedroom window to get into the shelter. The next door bungalow, about 100 yards down the road had a direct hit with a doodlebug which demolished it, broke all our windows on one side and jammed all the locks. I started school in Send, mother took me twice and then I had to go on my own walking, on the third day the school inspector turned up on mother's doorstep asking why I was not at school, with shock she explained that I had gone to school, they found me down by the canal fishing for tiddlers with a jam jar!  

From a memory by Jan Cowling. Click here to read the full memory.

   Since my birth coincided exactly with the outbreak of World War II in the September of 1939, my mum must have felt that childbirth was synonymous with calamity; I was Mum's 'war effort'. Home was a semi-detached two-storey house in Melrose Gardens, a cul-de-sac of thirty-two identical semis in Edgware, Middlesex. Dad was a printer by trade, and during the war years Mum worked at de Havilland's aircraft factory. My earliest recollections of those years was alternately being hoisted on Dad's shoulders to "watch the fireworks" (bombing) over London from our front door, or being hurriedly shoved into the pillow-lined steel cage Dad had rigged under the living-room table. Sometimes we joined the other families in the street-shelter 'til the 'all clear' sounded. Every child received a bottle of cod liver oil and another of orange juice (the former definitely to be taken before the latter). Powdered milk and eggs were the only kind we knew and I thought delicious. Dad managed to get me an apple on the black market for 2/6d. and I'm sure he paid more for a banana, which I didn't know had to be 'unzipped' and I bit right into the bitter tasting yellow peel. But the least memorable delicacy of the war years was whale blubber, which went into the frying pan ten times bigger than it came out, and tasted like nothing meant for human consumption. As time passed and the war showed no signs of letting up, we kids were evacuated out of harms' way. I remember waiting with hundreds of other children on the station platform, each of us with a luggage tag tied to our lapels with our name and address of destination. I was sent to Chesham in Buckinghamshire. I don't know how long I was separated from Mum and Dad, but I do remember the Victory street party with ice-cream, and my best friend Sylvie's dad banging a big bass drum. The blackout sheets were replaced with brightly coloured chintz curtains and Britain got down to the business of rebuilding.  

From a memory by Heather Rohrer. Click here to read the full memory.

   It was in the mid 50s that I went with my Grandmother to the Remembrance Day services held at the War Memorial. There was a group of WW1 veterans in a line and as a young child it was a surprise to me that they were crying. When I grew up and learnt what had been the horror of that war I understood. My Grandmother had several cousins who died and whose names were on there. She pointed them out to me, but I do not remember them. In my mind's eye, I can see the scene. Remembrance Day remains an emotional time for me and I'm sure it goes back to those Sundays in November.  

From a memory by Maureen Sinclair. Click here to read the full memory.