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I was just five years old when war was declared, on September 3rd, 1939, having been born on August 26th 1934 (at an extremely young age) and had started school a few days earlier. I remember the Prime Minister's broadcast, not because of its content, but because my parents and paternal grandmother, with whom we lived in Long Ditton in Surrey, had gathered round the radio, built by my father, to listen to the PM and afterwards the siren (first of many !) went and all of us and all of our neighbours went out to our front gates (terraced houses with small front gardens) to find out what was going on - had we been invaded ? The weather I seem to remember was dry and sunny with some clouds. Nothing happened and eventually the "All Clear" went and we went indoors again, very much relieved.

I am not sure whether it was just before or just after the Declaration of War, my father, who had completed his regular army engagement in 1938, was 'recalled to the colours' for a short time because he was a member of the regular army reserve and this enabled us to have a brief holiday in Dover to where he had been posted as a member of the Castle Garrison before he was returned to his 'work of national importance' in what is now known as 'electronics'. I remember him showing me what I have since learned was a sine wave on the cathode-ray oscilloscope which he had built soon after this time.

The Anderson Shelter delivered to us had not been galvanised and was thick with red rust so that it had no strength and was therefore useless as a bomb shelter.

The 'Phoney War' was the next phase during which our road received visits from a few light tanks on exercise as members of their crews lived in the road. The evacuation from Dunkerque was helped by some of the pleasure steamers from the nearby river Thames, I was told. Stan Collett, the son of a neighbour, was killed when HMS Hood was blown up.

The Battle of Britain was fought in part directly over our heads. To begin with the aircraft would go out in squadron formation - four 'vics' of three aircraft in each 'vic' and return later with an occasional aircraft doing a 'victory roll' to show he had shot down another aircraft -a practice which became banned in formation because it was potentially dangerous. Later on the battle moved into our area and we could see dogfights high above us and the vapour trails remained after the particular battle was over. The German bombers were raiding London and on at least one evening, as dusk fell and the sky began to darken, an orange/red glow developed to the north of us where London was on fire. Then came the night bombing of the Blitz. As our Anderson Shelter was useless, we used to get up and sit in the centre of the house, that being the strongest part, and brewed and drank tea. My sister, born in January 1939, and I could have been evacuated but Mum's ruling was that,if we were to die, we should die together which stopped any thought of evacuation. The nearest bombs, the explosions of which I slept through, fell about 50 to 75 yards away. One went through the rear roof of one terrace house where the occupants were drinking tea in the Kitchen, and the other, probably dropped from the same aircraft, fell twenty or thirty yards further in the midle of the road outside a detatched house in an adjoining close. The first bomb resulted in four houses being pulled down and the second just the house it landed outside being pulled down, both incidences on the grounds of safety. The spaces provided gave us children a useful playground until well after the war was over. My father's employment was in Woolwhich to where he went each day on his motorcycle - a bad enough journey today but which must have been an absolute nightmare in those days when road conditions were so much worse and the South Circular Road existed in name only. Some winter nights he would have to be helped off his motorcycle into the house to be thawed out. After one air raid he said that he had had to go into a burning building at first floor level to retrieve his motorcycle or he would not have been able to get home.

School continued in fits and starts, sometimes closing for periods when the bombing was bad, but we all learnt to read and write, do arithmetical calculations, etc., As the war eased as far as we were concerned and we grew up, we tended to stray further from home collecting shrapnel, etc., as well as tadpoles from local ponds in the fields (one pond in a bomb crater). The authorities took various precautions: our local pillarbox had its top painted with gas detecting paint and we were issued with gas masks, a local shop was turned into an Air Raid Wardens' post with a large concrete-block blast wall outside, Long Ditton recreation ground was planted with dead trees to prevent gliders landing and had a large brick and concrete structure built in its centre, three floors high with a flat roof to take an anti-aircraft gun - it did not receive its gun nor any doors or windows in the openings made for them. After the war it was knocked down and the foundations taken out and the site grassed over and the dead trees were taken away. Eventually we had a Morrison (indoor) Shelter delivered and erected.

In June 1944, just after the invasion of Normandy, the first of Hitler's 'Revenge Weapons' the V1 or Doodlebug began to arrive. We found that either the siren went and there was no Doodlebug, or the Doodlebug arrived with no warning. One went off whilst I was in the middle of the playground of Long Ditton Junior School which I then attended - that landed in a poplar tree in the graveyard of St Mary's church and blew the side wall off a house named Greenhedges, stirred our rear roof up as though with a pudding stirrer and blew out one large pane of our front window at ground level and all the glass from our rear windows. Another appeared to be travelling along Brighton Road, Surbiton, towards the River Thames when its motor cut apparently directly over my mother and me with my brother (born January 1943) in his pram, at the junction with Balaclava Road. It then turned left in its glide and landed on a house behind Long Ditton Parish Hall where at that time the Mother and Baby Clinics were held with the distribution of orange juice, cod liver oil, etc.,

The effects of the V1s were more than the immediate effect of bombing. Our dog, Spud, a Dutch Barge Hound/Chow cross could hear the V1s coming long before we could and would start whining. Eventually his exception transferred to motor bikes and any other noisy machine and he had to be destroyed. When my brother was small and in his pram, Mum would put the pram outside the front door in the sunshine and the dog would ask to go out of the front door so that he could 'protect' the baby. When let out of the back door, the dog would run at full speed down the garden path, leap over the back gate, rush up the side road, leap over the front gate and settle under the pram. In 1958, some fourteen years after the V1s, I was walking in the sawmill of the Hawker Aircraft factory at Ham when I found myself thinking 'I can take cover under that bench over there' and wondered why I thought that ? The reason was that one of the woodworking machines was running down and making a noise just like the pulsejet engine of a V1.

During the war we were all issued with Identity Cards, which had numbers (mine was CMPC 165 4) which later became my National Health number different to my National Insurance number, and Ration Books for food and clothing. In order to buy rationed food one had to register with a grocer, butcher, etc., in order that they could draw supplies in proportion to the number of people registered with that shop. Butter, margarine, cooking fat, bacon, eggs, sugar, tea, soap, jam, etc., were all rationed at a quantity per ration book. Meat was rationed at a retail value ( e.g. one shilling or one shilling and twopence) per ration book. Tinned goods and biscuits were available for 'Points' which were printed in the ration book and marked off with an indelible pencil or cut out by the supplier. Sweets were available for 'Personal Points' on a different page in the ration book. Clothing was available for 'Coupons' and knitting wool for the same coupons so certain more adventurous spirits tried to use rug wool for knitting. Bread was not rationed during the war but there was no white or brown bread only the standard 'off-white' - bread rolls were one farthing each or five for one penny. Bread became rationed (bread coupons) after the war and rationing continued until the early 1950s after a change of government was voted in in 1951 and it was phased out. The countries of Europe ended food rationing much earlier. When I joined the Royal Air Force in 1952 food was still on ration and coming home on leave in 1952 and 1953 (1954/55/56 I was posted to the Far East and had no home leave) I was issued with a ration card for the period of leave, but when I was demobilised in 1956 the only commodity still on ration was coal !

Ration Books had a finite life, three or six months, I cannot remember which, and had to be exchanged when they expired, which meant taking the old books to the local Ministry of Food Office. Our 'local' office was in Esher about five miles away and, because either my sister or brother was in a pram and could not go on the bus, a good walk was required.

Very soon after the V1s started, the V2s began. They were ballistic missiles travelling faster than the speed of sound and therefore there was no warning - or no defence. The first you knew was the explosion. Fortunately, by this time, the allied armies were well established in Europe and overran the launching sites of both V1 andV2, some V1s continued from air launchings but not nearly as many as the ground launches had produced.

In May 1945 Victory in Europe was celebrated and we built a large bonfire on our bombed site, had street parties, etc., I had passed 'the scholarship' and had been accepted at Surbiton County Grammar school for my secondary education. For one of our victory bonfires some of the older lads were given a few thunderflashes left over from ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard exercises. There were no ordinary fireworks on sale and these were extra special. We put one of the thunderflashes under an inverted Pig Bin which was blown about four feet into the air. Perhaps I had better explain what a 'Pig Bin' was. National recycling is not new, very early in the war the local authorities were required to collect 'Salvage' and to this end put out 'Salvage Sacks' into which the local inhabitants could put their waste paper, tin cans, etc., which would then be collected at regular intervals by the 'Salvage Men'. In our area the hessian sacks were hung from structures made from Silver Birch logs with a roof made from two sheets of galvanised, corrugated iron each about eight feet by two feet. By each of these structures was a Pig Food Bin where waste food could be put to be boiled up on a large scale for feeding as swill to pigs as part of the home food production programme. These bins were similar to ordinary dust bins in size, with lids, but all made from a much heavier gauge of iron and galvanised. Very heavy to lift when empty thus blowing one into the air took quite a force !

Growing up during the war and the 'austerity' years which followed it was quite difficult. Everything was in short supply, or just not available. For years past now my favourite word has been 'plenty'. I still marvel each time I see a whole counter full of cakes in a supermarket. I benefitted from having a generous mother who, I later realised, would restrict her eating for her children's, satisfying her requirements with bread and margarine or potatoes or another cigarette. The last eventually killed her at the age of 77. However, we all came through not really the worse for it.

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