Tuesday 21 June 2011

Memories of WWII as a child

I haven’t written anything on this blog for a while but something jogged my memory today. We are on holiday (vacation) for a week but having what has been termed in the fullest sense a ‘stay-cation’ Usually we travel somewhere and rent a cottage or a caravan as we have a dog. As we live in a town considered a holiday seaside town and live in a nice modern cottage with all mod cons and kitted out just how we like it – we said ‘why go away?’. Petrol costs, the cottages and caravans cost and may not be as comfortable. So we have stayed home. It has done nothing but rain. Today was the first dry day so grabbing the dog by its lead we walked down town, about a mile away, sat in our favourite café and had a coffee, booked to go to our local amateur theatre and then strolled round town.

In the centre is a lovely little park known as ‘The Lawns’ with a brook, full of ducks and black swans, running down to the sea. On the lawn they were holding a charity do with stalls selling anything they could. One had china and glass bric-a-brac and this is where the memory was stirred. Two wall plates depicted aeroplanes of the second world war, bombers a Lancaster and a Wellington flying over farms and fields with a child in the foreground running and happily pointing upwards.

Now my memories were not so idyllic as this but when I was just rising seven years old I was out on my own, I’m an only child, pushing my doll’s pram and generally playing on some nearby waste ground. I heard the roar of a plane coming and looking up a fighter was coming right towards me very low. I was terrified as I had already been machine gunned by a plane earlier in the war. I started to run home pushing my pram and I remember ducking as is sped over me. I thought it was a German plane but as it swooped over I saw the British red, white and blue roundels. It was so close I could see the pilot in the cockpit.

When I hear about wars today and children being caught up in raids I remember my time of fear. I was lucky, I lived in a town that wasn’t bombed too much as the Germans were saving it to take and use as a command centre to take London. We did suffer the flying bombs or doodle bugs as they were called. One never knew where they would land. If you heard the engine stop you stood still and waited until you heard it explode. If you were still there you breathed again and carried on with life. This was all part of my life from the age of four to ten. I still jump at loud noises and know if it is an explosion by the ‘woof-woof’ in the ears as the air passes. Yes I heard explosions since, in London, set off by the IRA.

I didn’t buy the plates but only because I didn’t have the cash on me to do so. I had enough to buy a pair of knitted mittens and a blue bead necklace. Probably better.

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