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This story has been submitted to the People's War site by Chris Hall for Kent Libraries and Archives and Canterbury City Council Museums on behalf of Mrs B V Lamoon and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Now my parents were worried about the young ones and Mum went away for two weeks to Aunt Flo, she was her sister and lived
in Rochester. But after that two weeks they came home to be with Dad and me, she wanted us to all be together. Enid and John had been away to Wales before and were unlucky in the billets, both were unhappy.Then Enid, John and little Jenny went to Nottingham. Enid and Jenny were once again unlucky and homesick; dad fetched them home each time. John was in a good place with a childless couple and stayed a while and worked in an aircraft factory.
Later he came home and worked in the dock yard as an electrians mate. This was later to serve him in the Royal Signals when he
was called up to do his service in Germany after the war ended. Kathleen was called up in the Wrens; I wasn't old enough and Mum wouldn't let me volunteer for the nursing corps. I worked in the stockroom and counters at Woolworths by day, and nights as a waitress at Igglestone in the market square. Walking home after work without a torch in complete darkness I got frightened at times. "Walk in the middle of the road", dad said, "and keep your eye
on the skyline, look around you and if someone approaches you
can run". When the siren went and I was in the town I made for "Trevanion Caves" near which is now the swimming pool. You could walk right through to Athol Terrace caves where the family were. Only once did I break down and cry, that was when they were bombing the ships in the harbour and I was on the seafront. I just wanted my mother and for it all to stop, such wasted lives and I had had enough. Seeing my mother and feeling her warmth and words of comfort I calmed down ready to go on.

Doodlebugs flying low overhead; engines roaring and flames coming out from behind. One gave a sigh as it passed over but
where was it to land? You never got a warning with the shelling
or doodlebugs. Auntie Cissie's husband Ernie Smith was the Air Raid Warden for our area. He rode his bike and blew his whistle
so hard as if the wind was in the east we couldn't hear the siren. He had been in the first war in the trenches and had a leg injury; he was also gassed so he knew all about shelling. Uncle Ernie was the first who knew what was happening when the first shell fell on Dover. That day I was walking home on the sea front when there was a loud bang. Out he rushed from the A.R.P.hut and told me to run home and tell Auntie Cissie first as she lived at the end of East Cliff and then tell anyone I saw to all run to the caves. He thought at first they were shelling from a ship,as no one knew that the enemy had guns that could be fired across the channel.

Every night up we went with the bedding to the caves, beds made all ready for us. We hung on to the last moment before going to the caves for the night. In the morning home we went with all the bedding. My father made a hand cart for the bedding as it was heavy as there were seven of us. Out on the clothes line it was hung to air as they smelt musty and damp.If the weather wasn't right it went round the fire until mummie was sure it was dry. The only time we slept at home was if a gale was blowing.
Brother John was called the "Plane Spotter" as he was good at knowing what planes they were. Shishe and Kate were old Burvill relations and lived at no 47. Shishe would come and ask John if it was alright for them to sleep at home in their own beds. John would tell him when we were going to sleep in the caves or at home and they did the same.

It wasn't all unhappy times, there were the christmas parties for the children and they gave us a concert after, which was got together by another relation.A stage was set up with curtains after the children's concert, anyone could do a turn. Even the forces helped and all were welcomed. Peggy Hall was the relation who got the concert together; she also taught the children at a small school in the caves at East Cliff called the Chapel Cave. In the ceiling was a dome carved out like a church and around the circle of the cave were seats cut in the chalk. John, Enid and Jennifer went to the school. Each child's parent had to supply the material for the school. Atholl Terrace was the biggest cave so the concerts were held there.

Granny Amy Burvill would stand at her door and was called "Gran" by everyone and even
those in the forces, There was many a tear shed by her when they said "Goodbye Gran" and her saying "son" as she waved to them. I made many friends and wrote many letters of which so many were returned as "Killed in action". John ran errands, Enid darned socks for anyone. Mum came to the rescue with talc and vasoline when they had been out on long marches and got sore feet. Mum & Dad were called that by the forces and many a time mum came home from shopping to find some one asleep by the fire. They carried her shopping and drank cups of tea around the table and talked to her. Some times the young ones brought them home to "see my mum" as they said.
After the guns were taken in France life became better for us; we had more freedom and I walked the cliffs once more but was so sad. Landing craft were coming ashore on the hard at the bottom of East Cliff and the same left from here always I was looking out for anyone I knew. Our food was still rationed for a long time even when I married Douglas in 1950.

All around was the rubble of the houses and from this rubble came the bricks for our kitchen. When Mum, Dad, Kathleen and
myself came home we carried what ever we could of bricks. One by one they slowly built up and when Kathleen went into the
Wrens I carried on. It was after the war dad started to build the old kitchen a few bricks as and when he could. The window and
back door came from the rubble as well.The old tin roof was the same but we now had a ceiling, out went the old brick copper so now we had a nice new kitchen.
At the time Kathleen and I on coming home from work went into a building known as "The Round House" in Townwall Street having a look round we came across an organ it had been there since the first shelling. Kathleen pumped while I played in the ruins it must have been a bit weird with music coming out of the ruins.
A man passed on his bike and was looking around and nearly fell off. We couldn't stop laughing as he rode around a few times.
He never knew who was in there but the next time we went the organ had gone I suppose he had taken it.That happened before Kathleen went into the Wrens.

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