I remember treacle tart, bread and butter pudding, whale meat [ugh!], sweet coupons, and no jam. If you saved your coupons up, when jam came into your shop - stampede! I queued for bananas for four hours, I had never seen bananas. It was a heatwave and Mother came to find me.  At the start of the war I was taken away from my Mother and put on a train to Sevenoaks with lots of other children. We went to a children's home, about 10 to 15 of us, and the matron was not very nice to us. Another girl and I, because we were the eldest, had to make all the beds before we went to school and take care of younger ones. After ages, what seemed like years, my Father, on leave, came to see me and took me home for Christmas. All the cousins and aunts were there and one aunt said I could go back with her to Blandford in Dorset till the end of the war. I was so grateful. What mother didn't know was that Kent was bombed almost like London.

The ‘doodlebugs’ were most frightening rockets that flew until fuel ran out and then they dropped.