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In 1939 I was nine, we lived in a flat at 15 Regents Park Road. London Zoo was nearby so you could hear the lions roaring and the gibbons whooping. I spent a lot of time in the Zoo feeding the animals their favourite titbits, as you were allowed to do in those days. My brother worked as a taxidermist with Gerrards in Camden Town. He used to collect all the small animals that died in a sinister black bag. Most of the more dangerous animals were moved to Whipsnade in case the Zoo was bombed should war break out.

When war was declared in the September we had all been issued with gas masks at the school in Princess Road that I attended. We had to queue up to be fitted. They were very hot and uncomfortable with rubber straps that fitted over your head and pulled you hair. They came in a cardboard box with a string. Babies had an elongated version in which they lay. Some people became very agitated, pleading claustrophobia. My Mother was very scornful asking one of our neighbours if they’d rather be gassed.

My eighteen- year old brother, whose job was obviously going to be curtailed until after the war, joined the Royal Navy where he promptly caught german measles, which we all thought was very funny. My Father joined the Ministry of Supply and eventually became the Controller of the Midlands and was awarded a C.B.E. in 1952 My sister, a SRN, was at St. Georges Hospital, Hyde Park Corner. Sadly, that is now a Hotel. My Mother became a WVS and was involved with the welfare of the civilians evacuated from Gibraltar who were accommodated in various London hotels. I was evacuated, accompanied by my Grandmother, to my Aunt’s in Shrewsbury. She and my uncle, lived in a large house and thought I was preferable to some unknown evacuee. Eventually I was sent to boarding school on the Welsh border. I went back to the flat in the holidays when no one could be found to look after me.

I found wartime in the flat very exciting. The big anti-aircraft gun on Primrose Hill boomed and flashed during the air raids making almost as much noise as the bombs. I used to long for air raids, not appreciating the devastation and loss of life they caused. Shropshire was not a prime target but in spite of that my Grandmother had bought me a siren suit when we were there. Mr Churchill had one so it was the in thing. Mine was red. It was very warm, buttoning up to the neck. At the back was a sort of flap that could be opened when required to enable you to use the loo without the inconvenience of climbing out of the whole suit. Very useful should you be in a public shelter with limited facilities. I went on to sleep in my siren suit at boarding school, which was always freezing. I was the envy of the dormitory. In London it really came into its own. When the sirens went we would leave our top floor flat and join the other residents sitting on the basement stairs. Our landlady was Belgian and was usually hysterical. The bombs whistled and exploded with great crashes shaking the house. The house opposite got a direct hit and was converted into an Emergency Water tank. This was immediately colonised by a pair of mallards. Sitting under the kitchen table in my Aunt’s kitchen on the rare occasions when a German aircraft got lost and the siren went off was very tame by comparison. My Aunt had insisted that we all had covers made for our gas masks, cardboard boxes were not acceptable. Her dressmaker was instructed to run them up. The war hardly touched lives there. In the market chickens appeared out of baskets for regular customers, eggs were palmed to the chosen few. Small packets were slipped into bags. Needless to say my Aunt qualified on all these counts.

How different in London. Our local shop, the Primrose Dairy, had to wrestle with ration books. The large block of pre-war butter was no more. The wooden butter- pats were no longer needed. Small wedges were cut, carefully weighed, and wrapped in greaseproof paper. Bacon was sliced wafer thin, no longer the choice of cut. There was no favouritism, just scrupulous fairness.

My Father was an Air Raid Warden. He had a tin helmet and an arm -band. He had to check that every ones’ blackout curtains were drawn as it got dark so no light showed. When the sirens sounded they had to get people off the streets and into the shelters. Should any bombs fall they would help the rescue people in digging out survivors. One night St. Mark’s Church, at the top of the road, was hit by incendiary bombs. All the wardens and many of the residents tried to save what they could as the flames destroyed most of the building.

In Shrewsbury it was rather different. My Aunt’s garage, it was decided, was to be the ARP Post. A section was sandbagged off and a phone installed. My Uncle, a victim of shell shock in the first World War, took his duties as chief Air Raid Warden very seriously. Someone was on duty every night to start with. When it became obvious that Shrewsbury was not a major target things were scaled down. It became more of a social club with G&Ts at six while the supplies lasted and bridge was resumed.

When I said that ‘In London the sirens go all the time and that my Daddy has to put out fires and rescue people.’ it was not received very well by the smart gathering in the bunker as they called it.

‘We are doing our bit.’ I was told firmly, ‘And that’s what counts.’

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