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I was 9 years old when the war ended. I was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and spent the whole of the war years there. During that time there were many British servicemen stationed near Alexandria - there was an RAF camp at the end or our road - and there were a number of Naval families living in Alexandria. There were many ex-pat British families living in Alexandria and the British residents used to invite the servicemen to their houses and did their best to entertain them.

We were there when Rommel was advancing through North Africa until eventually he reached El Alamein. As Rommel advanced on Egypt all the Naval families were evacuated, and the British Embassy and the Consulate burnt all confidential papers. As the fighting got closer we could hear the sound of the gunfire in Alexandria, and as many British families as could do so made arrangements to leave - they were all trying to get to South Africa. My father, Frederic Shepherdson, could not leave - he was in charge of an engineering works in the harbour, doing essential work repairing British Navy ships. My older brother, who was then 20, was a Naval Armament Supply Officer so he too could not leave, but my father made arrangements for my mother, Edna, and for me to leave Alexandria for South Africa. We joined up with a friend of mine, Pamela Lester, and her mother who were also trying to get away, and my father drove us from Alexandria to Cairo along the desert road on the first stage of the journey. This is about a 4-hour drive on a long straight road through featurless desert, and normally we would not expect to see another vehicle the whole distance. On this occasion the traffic was almost nose to tail, so many people were trying to get away.

When we reached Cairo we booked in to a hotel and my father returned to Alexandria. My mother and Mrs. Lester then started the long battle to get passages out of Egypt and through the Suez Canal to get to South Africa. They spent every day queuing up with hundreds of others at Thos. Cook's. Passages on ships were desperately short because all ships were used for war work and very few passengers could be carried.

While our mothers were desperately trying to get passages, Pam and I, who were only about 7 years old, and really did not understand what was going on, became temporary members of the Gezira Sporting Club which was not far from the hotel where we were staying. The club had two lovely swimming pools and one of the pools had something which in those days was very rare - a water slide! It was summer, and Cairo is hot in the summer. We had both spent all our lives in Egypt we could both swim like fish, and we had a whale of a time!

Eventually our mothers were successful and obtained the required passages out of Egypt and everything was arranged for us to leave Cairo the following day for Port Said where we would embark on a ship which would take us through the Canal and the Red Sea, and along to Cape Town. And then, suddenly, my mother changed her mind. She said, "My husband has to stay, my son has to stay, we will all stay together." She disposed of her tickets (very easily!) and she and I went back to rejoin my father and my brother in Alexandria. Everyone thought she was crazy, and Mrs. Lester and Pam went to South Africa as planned, as did very many other British families.

As things turned out of course, my mother was right. Rommel was turned back by Montgomery at El Alamein and he never reached Alexandria. I never saw Pam Lester again. Like all the others who made it to South Africa, once the danger was past and they wanted to come back, they found the could not get back to Egypt and very many families found themselves separated for the rest of the war.

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