ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

(This story has been submitted to the People's War website through the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ East Video Nation project on behalf of Audrey Ashby and has been added to the site with her permission).

Audrey Ashby is from Spixworth in Norwich. Her first memory of the war was to have a profound affect on her childhood.

Just three and a half years old, Audrey accompanied her beloved father as he set off for battle from London's Waterloo Station.

AUDREY'S STORY IN HER WORDS.

My first childhood memory of the war, I was about 3 and half and we and we went to London where my father was going abroad and it was a very difficult time. We went on the bus to Watford junction in Hertfordshire and caught the tube up to London where we went to Waterloo and I didn’t realise what was happening at the time on the bus and the train but when we got to the London station and everywhere there were hundreds of soldiers in uniform gathering around lots of people there saying goodbyes. Suddenly I think I felt terribly alone. My father went on the station platform, we tried to follow and I tried to specifically to follow screaming daddy, daddy!. And then as I got to the area where the platform gates were they slammed the gates in front of me and I’m clinging to the gate screaming. I can vividly remember that gate going across there and often I used to dream about it which was a terrifying experience. My whole being was effected by this and the hysterics that I had following this my mother couldn’t console me and I still kept screaming and stamping and turning round and looking to see all these men going onto these troop trains which I didn’t realise what at the time what they were. The only thing she could do to console me was to take me to this little kiosk where she bought me these 2 little red china rabbits and I clutched them so tightly in my hand, it almost made my hands bleed because I was so traumatised by it. Then later on the trauma set it and it affected me quite badly with my health.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.