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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by a volunteer from Radio Suffolk on behalf of Phyllis Fairbrother and has been added to the site with her permission. She understands the site’s terms and conditions.

During the war, my husband was a Quarter Master Sergeant in the army, stationed at Bicester in Oxfordshire. In 1940 I was expecting my first child and when I came into labour I was taken by my husband and brother-in-law to University College Hospital. There was an air raid on and a bomb was dropped on Maples (the furniture store) in Tottenham Court Road, close to the hospital. When we arrived at the hospital, everything was in confusion. The staff there, thinking my brother-in-law was my husband, grabbed him and sent my husband away telling him that I was only allowed to be accompanied by one person. In fact, as the bombing worsened, they eventually told him to leave as well! I was hurried down to the basement and gave birth to my daughter, Jean, in the Laundry Room.

Once out of hospital we lived in two rooms in Stanhope Street. One day I took the baby around to my mother’s on Robert Street. While we were there there was an air raid. After the all clear, I walked back to my house. I unlocked my front door and was astounded to discover that behind the door there was no house! All the houses on the street had been bombed and all that remained of my home was an enormous bomb crater. In the crater I could see all that remained of our personal belongings but what upset me most was seeing that my rice pudding had been ruined! I could see it inside my oven which was lying there with the door open. Our street had been badly hit; a friend of mine was killed while out walking her baby when an ‘oil bomb’ was dropped. However, it was strange how our local public house, “The Sovereign”, remained standing and untouched.

After this I went to live with my mother and then we moved into rooms in Frederick Street which were furnished with ‘utility furniture’. My husband was away and in April, 1944, I was expecting my second child when my daughter contacted whooping cough. She was transferred to hospital in Stanmore, Middlesex and I remember standing in a Police Station trying to contact my husband when my waters broke. When I went into labour, during a blackout, we called for an ambulance but we ended up getting lost as we discovered that Queen Charlotte’s Hospital had been moved!

Another thing I remember about my life in the war were the gas masks. Little Jean had a ‘Mickey-Mouse’ gas mask and the baby’s consisted of a large box. We always joked that, had we needed to use them, it would have taken so long getting these masks fitted on to the frightened children that the mothers, themselves, would have ended up getting gassed!

We were eventually evacuated to Tam, near Oxford, close to my husband who would cycle over to see us whenever he could. It was much quieter than London but I missed the big city.

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