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Betty Chesterfield

I was born in 1931, but my memories begin in 1938. I listened to the news on the radio and overheard adults’ conversations. I was an early reader and put in practice with the newspapers when nobody was looking, so I knew about Hitler who was making people worried about war. The Chamberlain speech about ‘peace in our time’ while waving a piece of signed paper was on the news at the cinema and set people thinking.

In my nearby recreation ground I watched them dig a trench for people to get in in an air raid. Since it was small, had no ladder and filled with water when it rained, I informed my parents that I would not get in it!!

I knew things were getting serious when the trench was changed into a brick-built building.

My parents had our coal cellar reinforced so that we could shelter in it. The hole to get the coal in was enlarged so that we could escape if our house was hit. I heard somehow that Hitler was making a speech and I knew (do not know how) that one could hear his broadcast on the radio (sorry wireless!). I persuaded them to let me listen even though none of us spoke German. I think they did it to shut me up! Listened to the rant for a few minutes and formed the opinion that I did not like the sound of him! We were going to my aunt’s in Scotland, in September, and before we left someone came round delivering gasmasks. My brother had to have a canopy hood type into which you pumped air with a lever on the side. The woman said we could not have them and take them into a foreign country!!! My mother explained the meaning of UNITED KINGDOM. We got them. Thus, a week or two later on a Sunday morning we all listened to the wireless to Mr Chamberlain’s speech ending “I can now tell you this country is now at war with Germany” and I can still hear the tone of his voice. We returned to London and all was quiet for a good while.

I got mumps, and lying in bed I could see lots of barrage balloons in the sky. All were slightly inflated, then suddenly they would start to inflate and rise. When this happened, we knew the German planes were on their way to bomb and strafe us. Now there is an  expression “when the balloon went up”. The Spitfires and Hurricanes were so successful at shooting the German planes down, they turned to night bombing. Meantime life had gone on as sort of normal, but food was rationed, peoples’ relatives were called up and we children were not allowed to go far from home. And never ANYWHERE without our gas masks in their cardboard boxes.

The night raids interfered with sleep. The air raid warning would sound and we got up and went down to the coal cellar where we sat and listened to the drone of the German aircraft, the whistling of the bombs, the huge crunch of the explosions and the sound of our guns trying to shoot them down. When the all clear sounded we went out of the front door to see if our neighbours were safe. One night a church at the top of the nearby hill was hit by an oil bomb, and the steeple looked white against the red orange flames all along the roof.  I can still see that in my mind's eye - it was in a way horrifyingly beautiful, and I’ll never forget it.

We lived opposite a Golf Club which gave over a very large part of the course to growing wheat, prepared and looked after by travelling professionals. Once it was cut and put into sheaves to dry the actual collection was done by the two remaining groundsmen of the club. I saw them start to collect with a little trailer and asked if I could help. They said “yes” and so a friend and I spent the next two weeks of our school holiday riding on the tractor down to the field where we collected the sheaves. One man stood on the trailer and the other threw the sheaves up to him. He got higher and higher as the load increased. So, we were pleased to help and then ride back where it was unloaded and a huge haystack was formed. There was plenty of room in the car park because only a few people had cars as petrol was rationed.

We started being attacked again by flying bombs which we called “doodlebugs” because they made a puffing sort of noise from the engine. If you heard the engine cut out - you lay down with your hands over your head and ears till you heard the explosion, which was quite big (it killed a lot of people). They were fired from the Continent and were directed, but the wind could modify the direction. One day they were coming our way so thick and fast that we ate our lunch standing and on the run back to where we crouched down behind the settee pulled across between us and the window. No glass or plates allowed in case!!! To keep my young brother quiet I played Monopoly with him. Suddenly we heard one engine cut out and there was an enormous noise and blast which blew the curtains horizontally out of the open window along with some of my Monopoly money. I was deafened in my right ear by the blast but after a couple of

days I could hear out of it fairly well. As adults my brother was surprised when he had a hearing test to be told one ear was markedly worse than the other. When I suggested the worst ear was the left one he wondered how I knew. I explained that it was my right ear because of the blast we had experienced.

When the invasion of Europe began, we used to count the bombers in their many formations going out to attack the Germans. Later on, we would count them back, some limped back, some came back slowly much later and some never came back at all. But the sound of an engine, however stutteringly, would make us run to see it and cheer them on.

Finally, the war ended and VE Day came. We children were by now well known to neighbours for various reasons like taking the book around to show who would be on duty during the Blitz as firewatchers. If an incendiary bomb had hit your house and you were in your shelter, you might not have known in time to either get out or hose it down. So they called on us kids to collect as much rubbish that would burn and told people around that we were having a party that night. The men dismantled an air raid shelter (metal), laid it in the middle of the road, and we carried huge amounts of stuff, furniture, bushes etc to lay on the pile. People came from all around our street, and it was one heck of a party with a piano, lots of beer etc and they did not forget us - LOTS and LOTS of lemonade!

It was with sad feelings though, as two of my cousins were killed and also one of my school friends. In spite of all the awful things that happened and things like clothes, food, sweets etc being rationed I can honestly say that I had a happy, eventful and educational childhood.

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