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I lived in St Giles Lane, Thetford during the war. I was forever sneaking out of the house and having adventures and then being brought back. My family made many friends with American soldiers during the war, they would come over one day drink and laugh only to 'disappear' soon after never to be heard of again. I never asked what happened to them but when I was older I was told that the men I had shared my food with one night, the friends I had made, had been killed in action.
I remembered that the British flew to Berlin at night, but there were air raids during the day in England.
When I started school in Norwich, I was taken in a long line of children to the air-raid shelters.
Sitting on the bridge over the railway line at Thetford station I watched tanks being loaded onto the trains, and how the ammunition clanked.
Rugs were made out of sacks, and the only sweets that were available were liquorice and nippets ( that made you want the toilet). As children we would rush to the shop once we heard that the first sweets (Sharpes toffees) were in stock.
Tanks paraded the streets of Thetford on VE day. There was a Spitfire and a tank in the market square for 6d a ride. The next day I went to the American base in an army lorry and ate ice-cream for the first time.
I remember going to a fair and being pushed off the steps of the dodgems, and broke both my legs. We had to wait for a movement pass before being able to go to hospital past Snetterton to have them fixed.

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