I was born in London 14/06/1939 and have faint memories of the Anderson shelter in next doors garden which we used when at our Nan's tiny cottage in Mozart St.W10.Put me off George Formby for the rest of my life. I can remember seeing a German plane flying low over our house in Flackwell Heath,(we had been shifted out of London), after it had supposedly beaten up the one man operated station at Wooburn Green,My uncle was the one man. I especially remember being given a ride on my Father's dispatch motor bike on one of the occasions he came home . He served with 43rd Wessex Div . right through to 1946.
My father was born in London 1926, he well remembers the Battle of Britain along with the iron table in the front-room, and the Anderson shelter in the back-garden. Eventually he was evacuated to Pembroke, where he loved to watch the Sunderland aircraft etc. Wasn't long before he was 'sent home' for swearing at a woman who told him to stop picking blackberries from someone's garden, Bugger-off ! is all he said, be far worse these days !!! ''Rude little cockney kid'' they said, don't want him here. Just as soon as he was old enough, Dad jouned the ATC at Finchley. Done his first flight in a Whitley on a Navigation course, later Wellington's flying from Brize Norton.
I posted this on another thread on here. Spoke to my Mum today and she told me during the war she lived at 26 Playgreen Way Bellingham SE6, with her Grandparents William & Blance Pryce, Mums name at the time was Geraldine Lane, and she had her 10th Birthday on V.E day 1945, she remembers being sent to St Dunstans church hall until a UXB was made safe and spent lots of nights in the Anderson shelter in their back garden.
I was born march 1934 so i was five and a half when war was declared , I remember my mother putting up the black out curtains,, I lived in BRADFORD and remembered it was bombed a couple of times ,but the city got away unscathed compared to most other cities ,,my elder brother and i waited at the local school with others to be evacuated , but the bus never turned up so we went home and that was that ..sitting at the end of the street with mates , I remember the sky filling with aircraft must have been the 5th of july 1944 , the day before D-DAY ,,I was 10 years old by this time .. when news came through that the war was over 8th may 1945 ,my mate and I went to one of those old police boxes , opened the little door and asked if we could have a bon-fire ..,,so many things to remember rationing shortages etc etc one could go on and on ...
I remember the sky filling with aircraft - must have been the 5th of July 1944, the day before D-DAY; I was 10 years old by this time ... D-Day was 6 June (not July) 1944, as I well recall, so the previous day was 5 June.
My Mum was born in 1936 and was in Dagenham; She often mentions small snippets about the war and perhaps I should write them down. They weren't evacuated and spent time under the table and under the stairs, I don't know if she experienced much bombing or whether it was precautionary. Her Dads brother Charlie went off to fight, and her Mums brother William was killed at Cassino aged 21. She remembers how devastating the news was to the family and says she would have liked to know more but didn't liketo ask and cause more upset. My MIL was born in 1926 and was a landgirl. She says the farmer was cruel,they slept in a barn and worked very hard and they didn't get much to eat. My late father was in Sussex and mentioned doodle bugs, and served in the Navy but I don't know any more than that.
My Mum was born in 1936 in Portsmouth and remembers the bombing of Portsmouth Dockyard, She told me of the Dogfights with the Spitfires and German fighters and recalls watching them being shot down, My Uncle was in the old Royal Portsmouth Hospital which was bombed and he was moved to Tichfield cottage Hospital soon after, My Grandmother arrived to see him at the Royal Hospital and seeing the damage and not being able to find my uncle thought he was killed. Mum also remembers the "Yanks" camped over Portsdown Hill at Southwick house which was the HQ for D-Day and later watched the Italians arrive as POWs who worked on the land around Portsmouth, she said they were kind and glad to be out of the war. One of the worse things she witnessed was the Ambulances Trains leaving Portsmouth full of the wounded after D-Day. At the end of the war she told me that my Nan and a lot of the parents went to the newsagents to buy and hide the copies of the papers that showed the aftermath of the concentration camps so the kids did not see the horror . One thing Mum says she would never do again is Queue in the cold with her ration coupons in the winter. My Dad lived in Bourne in Lincolnshire and remembers watching the Paratroopers training for Arnhem and living closed to the RAF & American Bomber airfields counting Aircraft in & out from there bombing sorties. My Stepfather was involved in the first V1 that hit Portsmouth, His family home was badly damaged.
