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We used to live in Kent.

We saw the Battle of Britain — all the planes overhead. We watched the bombers following the river — the Medway, and sometimes the railway line. We saw the V2 bombers and the dog fights overhead. We had a German parachutist come down, and he was hung up in the hop vines, women were going to go to him, we were all angry and would probably had hit him or something, but a policeman came and said “ladies, we’re all English.”

People used to come out on bicycles selling things like hot pies, ice cream. My father was in the Navy and was torpedoed about 3 times, but survived the war.

The V3 bombers — we called them doodle bugs were terrifying. Once they stopped you knew they were coming down. I was evacuated in the war to Wales, to Monmouth. My mother brought us back when Dunkirk fell because if we were going to fall, she wanted us all together. She was afraid that Hitler would have separated us like he did in Europe.

This story was collected by Becky Barugh and submitted to the People’s War site by Sarah Evans, both of the ��ѿ��ý Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of the storyteller who wishes to remain anonoymous. It has been added to the site with her permission and she fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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