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My war was seen as a child, I was 8 years old in September 1939 when War was declared and almost 14 years old when V.E. day came in 1945 and my memories are those of a child, sheltered by the adults around me, with very little idea of the seriousness of the situations around me, only of the excitement.
I was at school at Ford Junior School in Plymouth, and in the first few months of the war we were issued with gas masks carried in square cardboard boxes attached with string later you could buy different shaped cases for them. They were to be carried at all times. It was decided that if the air raid sirens went off all children who lived near their school should run home. I lived about five minutes away from the school so I used to have to run home and I took several other little girls with me to go to our Anderson Air raid shelter. This idea was changed quite soon because of the dangers of having all these young children running in the streets. Today the very idea of sending those young children out in the street when an air raid was on seems very strange. Our Air Raid shelter was in the backyard of the house in Crantock Terrace in Plymouth and it had 2 bunks, one along either side. It also had a Primus stove, some tins of food and I had to wear thick ‘itchy’ green trousers which my mum had made out of an old curtain or tablecloth they were so bulky and uncomfortable. There was also a bucket of sand kept near the entrance of the shelter in case of incendiary bombs. We used to sleep in the shelter if the air raids were bad, especially during March and April 1941 when Plymouth was very badly hit.
When the air raids were very bad the population of Plymouth was encouraged to go out of the city to sleep and we went to a big house in Sparkwell, a village on the edge of Dartmoor. The house, I believe was owned by a member of the Parker family. Mum and Dad slept in a downstairs room with great big shutters on the windows and I slept upstairs in one of the attics with one of the housemaids. I can remember being fascinated watching her undress and removing all her layers of clothes.
It was after one of these nights sleeping out of the city that we came home to find all the windows blown out of our house and the middle wall gone we could see right through the house from front to back. I think it was probably about this time that it was decided that Mum and I ought to leave the city. Also about this time my Dad was called up into the Merchant Navy which he had been in before the War.
Living in the Ford area of Plymouth we were quite close to the Dockyard which was a target for the bombing and Devonport had a lot of damage. We were also close to the bus Depot at Milehouse. When a landmine dropped one night we were all sleeping downstairs at the time, and I evidently told Mum and Dad that if I was going to die I was going to do it comfortably in bed!
My school at Ford was badly damaged and the pupils had to go to other schools. In 1941 my dad’s offices, the Co-operative insurance offices in Courtnay Street, were bombed and he walked from home into Plymouth, found the damaged building and then walked out to Crownhill to tell his boss about it.
Much later I also learnt that my Mother had been up to Plymouth Hoe and seen some of the survivors of the Dunkirk evacuation (June 1940). The Hoe was evidently full of these confused men just waiting for care and attention.
I remember we visited the Forest family who lived in Townshend Avenue, Keyham. Their youngest son Victor had been on a ship that had been sunk, he had been in the water for many hours and was sent home to recuperate, before joining another ship.
There was always quite a competition at school to see who could bring in the largest piece of shrapnel each day, after an air raid it was everywhere.
My Dad regularly had to go on fire duty, and would come home and tell us where places were burning. My Mum was always very worried until he got home safely.
After our house was damaged it was decided for safety’s sake that we should move out of the city. My parents did not want me to be evacuated so Mum and I went to Newton St Cyres, near Exeter and stayed with Auntie Lottie & Uncle Joe (My Mother’s Aunt & Uncle) and I went to the village school there. My only recollection of the school there is that the other children thought I ‘talked funny’ and that we had to parade around the village wearing our gas masks. I can remember that the cottage had a pretty garden and I know we used to go for walks in the countryside. I don’t think we stayed there very long.
From there we went to my Grandparents at Exmouth and I went to Exmouth Church School. There I played a triangle in the school orchestra!
While I was there I took the scholarship exam, along with the girls from the Dockyard Orphanage who had been evacuated there. For a very shot time I also went to school at The Beacon with some London evacuees, I only remember that I hated it and hoped every day that I would not have to go back.
Mum and I had the upstairs rooms at my Grandparents house in St Andrews Road Exmouth with our furniture stored in the front room. One day, a summer day in July or August 1942, I was sitting on the windowsill in the bedroom, with the sash window wide open, looking out over our garden, when I saw and aeroplane flying low and coming virtually up the back lane. It looked as if it had come in over the river. I watched it and looked carefully, expecting to see the Red, White and Blue rings of our planes. Instead I realised that I was looking at a big black Swastika on its wings. As I sat watching it I saw it drop its stick of bombs (3). I remember running, shouting, out of the room and down the stairs. My Grandma, at the bottom of the stairs pushed me into the cupboard under the stairs and as she was doing this the front door, and the inside door blew off their hinges and into the passage. One of the bombs had landed across the road in St. Andrews churchyard, we were very luck that they were not very big bombs, or we would not have survived to tell the tale! That was really my only real dice with death! And I was 11 years old!

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