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I was 9 years when the War started. My Mother had died in 1938 and my Dad decided to evacuate me to Kent to live with my married sister, Margaret, husband Bob and son John. John and I were at a Church Army Service the day War started. It was a beautiful day, and the marquee was golden with harvest fruit and flowers. Only children were there, the adults being clustered around the wireless listening to the Prime Minister. The Church Army Captain had just called upon those who wished to be "Soldiers of Christ" to kneel at the altar and I dragged my 3 year old nephew to the front. Suddenly the banshee sirens announced the beginning of the War and my sister dashed in, running back down the lane with the childen following like the Pied Piper of Hamlin. We all sat under the kitchen table awaiting the arrival of the Germans. Almost 25 years later my nephew was ordained a Church of England Minister at Southwark Cathedral.

My brother-in-law and a neighbour built a deep brick shelter in the garden for us to share. However, I was unhappy leaving my Dad and returned to London. When the first raids started, I returned to Kent. Soon after my School (Holborn Road) received a direct hit from a parachute mine and our house, which was closeby, was badly damaged. My sisters May and Violet and their boyfriends whom they later married were ARP Wardens and their post was at the school, where my Dad was a Fire Watcher. The post was not manned at the time, as it was night and everyone was out helping people who were being bombed, but the Caretaker and his family perished. Another sad event was our house being looted and my lovely toys stolen - something I have never forgotten. My Dad went to live with his Sister and my sister May married at Little Bardfield Church, Essex, with no family present. Her twin Violet had already married and had a baby daughter and later a son, remaining in London most of the War helping her husband to run a Church Army Hostel in Bethnal Green.

I remember the evacuation of our troops from Dunkirk, as our washing was covered in smuts from the fires raging across the Channel. Also the coaches bringing the wounded to Preston Hall Hospital came along the top of the lane, all with their windows blacked out so as not to see the injured survivors.

In Kent we spent days and nights in the shelter, listening to the drone of the German bombers at night and peering out to watch the "Dog Fights" during the day. We could see the Downs silhouetted by London burning and knowing my Dad, sisters and their families were being bombed was terrible. My Dad received minor injuries several times, mainly burns or problems like conjunctivitus through the dust and smoke, but he survived the Blitz and Doodlebugs. On rare occasions he visited us in Kent. We saw little of my brother-in-law as he worked 12 hour shifts at the factory, spending his free time with the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard where he was a Sergeant.

During one bad raid family friends who had been bombed out of their home and shop arrived, complete with suitcases, and they joined us in our three bedroom semi-detached until they were able to find accommodation.

We were unable to attend school during the blitz, but played parlour games in the shelter. We drunk cocoa made with condensed milk and ate spam sandwiches during a lull in the raids. We always received warning of the raids before the sirens sounded as the lions in a local zoo would start to roar. We read and wrote letters to our family. There were three levels of defence against the planes, first the big guns(we had one called Big Bertha near us and when it fired the plaster fell off our ceiling), then the fighter planes from West Malling, and finally a network of barrage balloons - sometimes one would break free and we would chase it across the fields. After the raids my brother-in-law would climb into the loft to make sure no incendiary bombs had landed in the roof.

When the all clear sounded, we would run into the fields to find shrapnel and bullets, but had to take care as the hot shrapnel could burn. One day, we did not have time to get to the shelter and a terrible dogfight was overhead. Suddenly, we heard a German plane in its death dive screaming down and my sister and I stood in the passage with our arms around each other protecting my nephew. The plane crashed at the end of the lane and was buried so deep in the sand as far as I know it was never recovered. We had bombs and a parachute mine in the lane, when wounded planes shed their loads, but no one was hurt as they fell in open fields. We also had a number of doodle-bugs fall around us. We would listen for the throbbing of the engine to stop and then dive for cover. I remember one landing closeby, killing a neighbour. All the windows around shattered. Sadly one doodlebug was shot down by a fighter pilot and it fell in the next village of Snodland, killing the policeman, his family and two evacuees. It landed opposite my Music Teacher's house which I had just left and I was grateful not to have disobeyed my sister and returned straight home, otherwise I might have been hurt.

I did lose good friends. One young boy picked up an unexploded shell and was killed, whilst another lost an eye and an arm, but became a good athlete. For a time we had an evacuee living with us. He was a poor boy, very unhappy who wet the bed - his father was in Prison. He did not stay long as his mother took him home during the Phoney War. I often wonder if he survived.

Lots of men in the Lane went into the Forces. I had special friends, a large family living in a two up two down tied farmworker's cottage. Their Dad became a soldier and early in the war was posted missing. There was great joy when we learned he was a Prisoner of War in Germany, although he had lost a leg. The Government later exchanged injured prisoners with the Germans and he was one of the first to be repatriated. What joy there was when he swung down the lane on his crutches! Everyone waved and cheered and ran out to shower him with gifts - a hoarded jelly, chocolate from the airman home from India, eggs from my sister who kept hens - so many the poor man was weighed down and needed help to carry them.

These same friends taught me about Nature. Twice a day we had to pick rabbit food (everyone kept rabbits, but not as pets, for food and we made warm gloves from their skins). They taught me about the flora and fauna - in those days the meadows were full of cowslips, wild orchids and other rare flowers - and the countryside which city dwellers considered dull, became a fascinating place for me - I owe that poverty stricken family so much.

Although we feared for our loved ones, as children life was most of the time carefree and fun. We had little schooling and could run wild through the countryside. Whilst there were shortages, in the country where everyone grew their own produce and we kept hens and rabbits, the essential foods were available. Some fruit and luxuries were not available and if they did get through we would queue long hours for one orange. Ice Cream disappeared and the first holiday we had after the War I ate fourteen in one day to make up for five years without!

When it seemed the war was almost over, the V2 rockets arrived. I was awoken very early on the 15th February by my sisters May (who had travelled from London) and Margaret to tell me my Dad was missing and the friend's flat he was visiting in Stratford on the 13th February 1945 had received a direct hit. I still went to school in Maidstone where I had won a scholarship, since I was sure he was alive. My brother-in-laws had the awful task of visiting the makeshift mortuaries in schools and church halls to try to find my Dad amongst the 43 killed. One was asked by a soldier who had returned from leave on the 12th, if he would accompany him to find his wife and children. Asking him to wait whilst he informed my other brother-in-law, the soldier had gone when he returned. My brother-in-law never forgave hmself. They only found Dad's trunk and one leg, identified by his silver pocket watch which I still have stopped at 6.53 pm. My father had visited that weekend and when he returned on the Sunday I was at a party nextdoor. As my father opened the gate I said "There goes my Dad and I haven't said goodbye". I was never to get another opportunity. As the rocket came over, our bombers were flying out to devastate Dresden. At that time we felt it was suitable revenge, now we realise how wrong it was.

When Victory in Europe came on the 8th May 1945, there was much rejoincing, but sadness too. I had grown to love the coutryside and would have found returning to the East End hard.

My husband's memories - recorded before his death in 2003.

I lived in Kent in the next village to my future wife, so remember the dogfights, bombs, doodlebugs and rockets she has mentioned. Where we lived was known as "Hell Fire Corner" and later "Doodlebug Alley".

When War broke out I had two sisters, Doris and Edna, with boyfriends awaiting call up, and two brothers, all older than me. Doris was the first to marry and her husband was at Dunkirk, then released from the Army because of his skills, but called back at the time of the Normandy Landings. He was one of the first to relieve the Belsen Concetration Camp and I shall never forget the horrific pictures he brought home of the atrocities committed there. Doris' second husband was also at Dunkirk, then became a Desert Rat, fighting at Tobruk, before going up through the toe of Italy where the Italians surrendered and then further into Europe and Berlin.

Edna's fiance was a Chindit fighting under General Wingate behind Japanese lines in Burma. Ted was a cheerful man, always singing and joking, but when he came home months after the war in Europe had finished, he never spoke of those days in the jungle. He brought me home some great souvenirs, including a sword, but my mother confiscated them.

My eldest brother, Ernest, joined the Air Force and was a real brylcream boy. He contracted tuberculosis and spent the war in a sanatorium. I remember visiting him with my Mother when he had made me a wonderful wooden model of a spitfire. Sadly, when we got on a crowded bus a fat lady squashed it!

My other brother, Gilbert, was still at school when the war started. When he reached 17 he joined the Durham Light Infantry and later the Queen Howards and Oxford and Bucks, with whom he served in Germany and Palestine. My Mother and I waved goodbye to him and she used to say "Gilbert left home in his old school mac a boy and the next time we met he was a tough man".

I remember an oil bomb dropping opposite the bungalow where we lived and blowing out all our windows, whilst I was in bed with bronchitis. The oil bombs preceded the incendiary bombs with the intention that together they would cause a fire of tremendous strength. With my friends we hunted for souvenirs after the raids and the day the doodlebug fell on Snodland two of us jumped on our bikes to see what had happened. The devastation was terrible, houses demolished, a gas main burning, fire, smoke an acrid smell and people frantically trying to rescue those trapped. Looking back, we two boys should not have gone.

My Dad worked hard to grow garden produce and had an allotment sharing the vegetables with neighbours whose husbands were in the forces. He made our air raid shelter by digging a deep pit in the garden and lowering the garden shed into it, then piling soil and sandbags on top. It was very cold in winter and damp in summer, so if we could avoid using it we did.

The war for me was exciting and as children we did not understand the danger - but I pray no future generations have to experience the horror and futility of War.

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