A Small Boy's Wartime memories
I will be relating this tale as if I were talking to you over a beer in a pub.
I was born in 1936 so that when the war started I was three and a half years old(half's matter when you are very young).
I can't remember much about that time but,
about two years later in 1941 when there was the “Battle of Britain”,
That's when I really started remembering.
It was fireworks every night. (In fact after the war on the
first fire works night I was quite disappointed at
the performance of the fireworks.) There was tracer bullets
flying across the sky. There were huge explosions which at the time I thought were fantastic and being unaware that someone was maybe being killed at the same time. As a young child right from my first memories there had always been a war and bombs. and large guns being fired at aircraft, you get to be complacent about it. So it was nothing to be afraid of because as far as I was concerned it had always been like that. It was normal.
We used to keep rabbits, not for pets but, for fattening up to eat. One night when my father was out on duty,(He drove a fire engine at nigh time)There was a particularly bad air raid and our mother took us boys to the top of our road where there was a public air raid shelter. She did not tell us we were going there, she said “ we are going to a rabbit show”. Well, we could not wait to go. When we got to the top of our road we went into the public air raid shelter. There were several other people in there. There were no electric lights so people had torches and some had really old old oil lamps. We sat and played in there until the air raid was over. Our mother said “we are going home now”, and when protested about going to the rabbit show she said “it's too late now it will be all over “ I did not find out until years later while talking over old times with her that that was one of the worst air raids ever and that she was absolutely terrified.
I will be continueing this tale "watch this space"
regards (they said that the name 'darkstar' was already taken so as I live in Spain I'll have it in Spanish) Estrellaobscura
Relax