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I was born in Portsmouth in April 1939. I was brought up in Palmyra Road, Gosport, where I lived with my mother and father until I was twelve years old. My mother's sister, her two children and her mother (my grandmother) lived two doors away.

My paternal grandparents lived in their own house in Trafalgar Place, Portsmouth, but when their house was bombed they temporarily rented a house in Wittering, near Bracklesham Bay. It was convenient because my grandfather was working in the Chichester area at the time and there were many empty houses.

My parents and I went to stay with them for a short time. My father joined the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard but one Sunday morning he left home for his usual pint at the pub, and did not return. Of course my mother was extremely worried and it was not until he turned up with a big grin on his face, in full army uniform, that the mystery was solved - he had enlisted. Money was short for a while and then my mother and I returned to our house in Gosport.

According to my mother bombing raids took place nightly and that she even saw the dreaded 'doodlebugs' (flying bombs)from her bedroom window.She said that that was how the song 'Run Rabbit Run' came about, because you kept running to and from the shelter. My father, when he was home, never slept in the shelter. In fact, he did not stay long in the army, about nine months. and then went to work in a munitions factory in Priddy's Hard, Gosport. It was all very frightening.

My earliest memories of WW2 are of singing on a stage at Fleetlands, where my granny worked. I sang 'I Don't want to Set the World on Fire', and 'I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles'. I was about three years old, my mother recalls. Sleeping in the air raid shelter at the bottom of my garden is a strong memory. I think that it was from that experience that I first became nervous of insects.

I can vividly remember a man's voice calling from outside the house 'Blackouts Down', of seeing lots of air-balloons floating in the sky, and hearing the drone of the engines as they flew overhead. I apparently used to ask my mother if our house had been bombed yet. I was too young to realize what was really going on.

I knew food was scarce and I remember my first taste of whale meat. Ugh! It was awful and maybe that is why I have never liked fat or grease to this day. I remember too of being cold because sometimes we were without a fire. I can recall anxiously looking out of the window for the coalman's lorry.

As I grew older the impression of the war became more real to me because troops en-route to France stopped for a while in our road. I must have been about four or five years old by then. Years later I was told that the troops had been allowed to bath in the houses and some were even lucky enough to be given a bed for the night - to ensure a proper nights rest before going into enemy action.

I remember sitting in a jeep and a soldier giving me peaches from his tin dish (billycan) - such a treat. One afternoon, when jeeps and tanks were on the move, a soldier standing on one of the moving tanks threw me a half crown, and I happily ran home with it. Not long after a big girl knocked my door and demanded the half crown saying that the soldier said that we children must share it.

Lots of children were catching money and items such as chewing gum.'Got any gum chum?' was the common call to troops. I thought they sounded American, but I have since been told that they were Canadians. Anyway, even at that young age I knew that you couldn't hear much above the sound of tanks moving. I gave the bully the money and she gave me a few paltry coins, which I threw back at her in disgust. It was the first and last time in my life I have reacted in such a way. I thought it was so unfair.
One day a tank hit my aunty's front garden brick wall.

Even though there was a war on, every Saturday my mother and I used to go across the harbour to Portsmouth on the Gosport Ferry, to visit my grandparents who had moved back to Portsmouth. On the trip back I used to see sailors being violently sick. I thought that they were being seasick, even though the sea felt calm to me, but when I got older I realized that they were just the worse for drink.

D-Day was a wonderful time. I can remember street parties, bonfires, dancing in the street and of people sitting on chairs being hoisted above strong shoulders as they danced round the bonfire - a real sense of joy, even though I was not fully aware of what it all meant.

When I was older I can remember reading in the Sunday newspapers about atrocities to women prisoners of war and allegedly the terrible things the Japanese had done to the women prisoners with fast growing bamboo. I have never heard, or seen on film, any mention of it since. But to me it was terrifying. And although I was very young the effect of the war was to stay with me for many years, as I was always afraid of another war like that one.

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