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I was just 10 when War broke out, .and living in Worcester with my parents and two sisters. I well remember my Gas-mask in its lacquered tin and seeming endless hours spent doing jigsaw puzzles, the fish paste sandwiches and the clear instruction from my mother that I could have sugar in my tea or in the rice pudding but not in both! This sometimes caused arguments with my sisters!

In the evenings my father who worked in Local Government went out on Fire Watching Duty. This left my mother all on her own so I often stayed up late with her to listen to the Wireless, as it was called then. One show I remember was called ITMA for short which stood for It’s That Man Again. For my mother these must have difficult times, .because in addition to the loneliness, she had the task of getting my two sisters off to sleep. Double British Summer Time was in operation so it did not get dark until about 11pm.which meant that some of my sister’s friends were playing in the street outside our house until well after 10pm.. My mother also had the problem of suddenly being told that we had to take in a lodger.

One highlight of the War Years was of cycling out into the countryside to collect pieces of shrapnel

Looking back I remember the War as an adventure. I was besotted by aircraft when the War broke out, so at the first opportunity I joined the RAF and served from 1946 until 1948

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