Memories of a child

There were six children in our family and i was the youngest. I was nearly six years old when the war started. My school was Laburnam Road Council school. We all had Gas masks and had to put them on to test them by breathing in to see if we could hold a piece of blotting paper on the bottom. We also had a lunch box at school incase we got 'trapped'. They built brick 'Barriers' outside all of the school entrances to take the blast -or something like that.
Gradually we had a lot of soldiers in Sandy, and Airmen at Tempsford Aerodrome. A lot of ammunition was stored in the woods, and big notices saying 'W.D Property - Keep Out.'
At night we would hear Planes droning overhead - and Doodle Bugs (flying bombs). We knew that if the 'Doodle-Bugs' engine stopped, they would fall. We used to hide under the table for shelter, only rich people had Air-Raid shelters. We did try to dig a shelter in the back garden but it just finished up as a big, muddy hole.
Food was rationed and there wasn't much of it - but we were healthy. Not much in the way of sweets for us, nor fruit.
Because it had to be kept so dark at night - no lights showing - we could see the glow of London Burning. I know a few bombs dropped here, and i seem to remember an enemy plane coming down behind Cambridge Road Gardens, where we now have Peels Place ect.
I remember German and Italian prisoners of war walking around in their suits with rings of different coloured material sewn in. We used to talk to them and sometimes they made toys for us.
All the railings were taken away to be used to make munitions - that included the ones along the front of the Recreation Ground in Bedford Road. One day i was pedalling up Bedford Road on my Mother's 'sit up and beg' bicycle when i saw two of my doggy friends playing in the Rec. I then saw an army Convoy coming down towards me. I was praying that 'Gyp and Tinker' would not see me. 'Oh Horror' they saw me and ran towards the road to come to me - no railings to stop them. Gyp was hit by the first lorry - 'Oh Heartbreak'. Tinker stopped on his little, short legs wondering what had happened. The convey stopped and some soldiers got out and picked up my little dead friend and put him at the side of the road. They looked as sad as this little girl sobbing by the road. Then i guess, they went off to war.
I used to sing to the soldiers. It wasn't Vera Lyn sending them off from here with a song, it was me - a little girl standing on a box. At the end of the war i was lifted onto the back of a cart on the market square to sing to the people.
I must add that we children worked on the land as well.

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