��ѿ��ý

This story was submitted to the People War’s site by Matt Bray of CSV Media on behalf of Pamela Heath and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

We was fairground people. We travelled all around Hertfordshire…all the fairgrounds and cinemas had to shut down. We pulled into a yard in Enfield Highway. This interfered with all my schooling. My Dad went to work in Enfield Lock Royal Ordinance Factory, (BSA British Small Arms) and he took the ammunition to the docks. Overnight the bombs dropped around the factory.

One night we used to go to the air raid shelter that belonged to the school. The wardens came and told us we had to get out as the bomb hadn’t gone off…we had to go to an air raid shelter in the high street. So my Dad said “that’s enough for us”, and as we had a coach that we lived in moved to Wadesmill. My Dad went back to the ammunition factory each day for his work.

Later he decided that we were better off down the Midlands, so we went with my Mum’s family to the farms to do potato picking and things like that. Then the amusements started up again and we went to Leicester and Coventry and then Nuneaton. Leicester and Coventry had been badly bombed and we set up the fairground on the bombed sites. After we came back to Aylesbury. We set up in a big park in Aylesbury which was taking lots of money because there was a large American air base nearby.

The name of the fair was Billy Smart’s fair. Then we got the doodlebugs around Finchley…it was bad around Finchley with the doodlebugs and the day the war finished, VE day, we was in Southall park with the fair and we have great celebrations with the dodgems, with people dancing and having fun. The fair was one of the best fairs in 1945.

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