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September 3rd, 1939.

It was Sunday, having been to Sunday School I went to play on the common in the village of Meadvale, Redhill Surrey. All of a sudden the sirens started wailing and we all knew that Britain would shortly be at war with Germany. A.R.P. Wardens came running down the road and ordered all of us children playing to go home and stay there! At 11 O' Clock we all gathered around the radio to hear Neville Chamberlain declare war with Germany. Our lives changed completely!

My family and every other family I knew were issued with gas masks. These were to be carried with us every where, you weren't even allowed to cross the road without one else you would be told off by the warden. We had to carry them around our shoulders in a square cardboard box.

In our village we had evacuee's from London who came to live with other families. They had to share our schools so instead of having all day at school some went in the morning and others in the afternoon.

When the bombs started dropping we spent everynight in our cellar. It had been re-inforced with large wooden structures just in case a bomb were to land on top of the house. During my school years I spent most days in the caves which run under the town of Reigate, these again offered us protection from the 'Jerry' bombers. We had numerous bombs dropped around our homes, as the German bombers would often off load bombs which hadn't been dropped over London over targets on their route to the coast back to Germany to save fuel. One night in 1944 my family and I were gathered in the cellar when we heard the sound an aeroplane. We listened to it more anxiously as the sound grew louder, then all of a sudden silence... a few seconds later an almighty explosion could be heard and felt. The aeroplane turned out to be a 'Doodlebug' otherwise known as a flying bomb. These horrible machines had no pilot and were sent over to England from Germany for months after. The devastion they caused grew when a newer version of this bomb was developed, casualties were very high!

June 6th 1944 and D. Day, things really started looking up for Britain. Peace was finally announced in May 8th 1945 however it took years to get back to normality as food, sweets, clothes and coal were still a ration. At least we could walk around and go to bed in safety now!

Joyce Lewis

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