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My mum, Polly Bates spent the whole of the war living in central London. She was 38 when the War ended. Her husband was in the army, fighting the war as were three of her four brothers. The eldest brother had to stay, as he was an engineer for a factory in Birmingham which had been turned over to make and supply munitions. These are some of the memories my mother passed on to me. The worst weapons to hit London were the doodle bugs which could be heard coming in, they would then cut out and there was a deadly silence as everyone held their breath and closed their eyes tightly until the bomb had dropped. After the worst night of bombing, the next morning the sun was shining, and the sky was brilliant blue. All the birds were singing. Everyone was going to work as usual and the sound of footsteps rhythmically walking on the broken glass was a sound she never forgot. In the day time if you saw a queue, you joined it even though you had no idea what was being sold. When once the Germans had invaded the Channel Islands my mother and her friends thought it was only a matter of time until our country was invaded. They lived each day as it came and partied as much as they could believing every day could be their last as a living person or last as a free person. I was born in February 1947 and lived in Kensington and Earls Court. Certain foods were still rationed and as a young child I played with old ration books. On visits to my grandparents house, I would play in the cage under the dining table. This was an emergency bomb shelter which many people had. I remember the sight of bombed houses. They looked as it they had been split in half with different patterned wall paper in the downstairs and upstairs rooms with the stairs and the chimney breast usually in tact. To me these were "normal". There was a particular favourite which was opposite the Home and Colonial Store in Earls Court. I was disappointed when these bombed properties were eventually demolished, re-built and the inside was no longer visible.

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