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My 6th birthday was on September 1st, 1939 and the present I got for my birthday was this grand, spanking new, shiny tricycle. Two days later, the big thing happened and we declared war on Germany because they did something we didn鈥檛 like which was invading Poland. Anyway, I was happily bopping around the street with my newly acquired tricycle and my old auntie, who I was living with in Hull, came rushing out, frantically shouting, 鈥淕et inside! Get inside! The Germans are coming!鈥� She had been through World War 1 and she was absolutely convinced that at any moment the Germans would be descending by parachutes, and I had to get inside quickly as otherwise they would get me. That was called the Phoney War when nothing much happened.

About a year later the big bombing started and we were in fact bombed out of that same house. Fortunately we had an air raid shelter and we just missed this huge land-mine of, I think, about 1,000lbs, by about 100 yards. It landed just across the street and the entire street was completely wiped out. All the buildings had gone and all the people who had been in them. It was terrible but when you are 7 years old it seems rather exciting, something different has happened. It鈥檚 not very exciting for older people to see smouldering buildings and dead or injured people being carried off the streets. There was a little candy store right across the street and it completely disappeared. I have just been back there for the anniversary and it is like someone has just chopped of the end of the street and cemented it up 鈥� and that is the little candy store that I used to go to. We had no more bombing after that but later on came the V2s but we were lucky.

I鈥檝e no idea what happened to my tricycle but I鈥檓 sure I was back out there the next day when the Germans didn鈥檛 come!

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