From Mrs J K Sheppard (nee Whitbread) of Badgers, Salters Meadow, Tolleshunt Darcy, Essex, CM9 8UE.

I was eight when war broke out and living in Kingston-on-thames in surrey. My dad installed the Anderson shelter, fitting it with a 2” steel door and electric light so we were quite comfortable in there unless it flooded which it did now and again. Our dog was always first in there when the siren sounded.

My earliest memory I 1939 was a sad one. My sister aged 19 who had just got encouraged had been out all day selling poppies. She returned home in an hurry to get ready to go out. Our house had been fully equipped with blackout precautions. On finding that the light bulb on the stairs (which were extremely winding and very narrow at one point) had burnt out, she carried on up to her bedroom in the dark. On coming down she fell from the top missing her footing in the dark. She broke her back, and in those day there was not much they could do. She had an operation but died under the anaesthetic I remember my cousin and I had to stay home while the funeral took place, and were fed Lyons Swiss Roll which was a treat.

She was a lovely person, very popular. When the first siren sounded she started throwing buckets of water up the walls as she thought that was the thing to do. What a mess. My father got very bitter after she died, and would stand u tge garden when the bombers came over daring them to drop something on him, he would swear at them and never came into the shelter. I was always frightened he could get killed.

Schools when on much as usual. We always carried our gas masks with us and if the siren sounded on the way to and from school we were instructed to knock on any door to seek shelter. I remember the exercise books had terrible paper. Once our plimsolls had worn out you couldn’t get any more. We had to buy things made of a sort of rough slippery material, don’t know what it was.

We children were encouraged to write to forces, knit squares, and we also had little mini auctions in our classrooms. Everyone would take things to sell, and were expected to buy something, the money going to the forces. I was very proud to obtain an egg, yes a single egg which I took home to my mother. I also bought a dressing table set in bright red satin, a really awful thing but I covered it. I think we wanted something bright to cheer us up.

There was a big drive on to save paper and our school ran a scheme whereby the children collected all the books they could find to contribute. The more you collected the higher up you became in obtaining Army status. The lowest you could being a private and the highest Field Marshall. I use to take my old dolls pram round collecting. At the end of the scheme I think I had got about 1000 books, and won first price which was 10/- and a letter from the Mayor of Kingston congratulating me, which I still have.

Our English teacher encouraged us to write to school children in Canada, she ha a teacher friend there. That was whe I was 11 and I am still writing to her. We are now 74. Sje came over twice to visit with her husband who has since died. She is not very well just now, but we still write. She always sent us a parcel for Christmas, mostly food and sweets. We awaited it with great excitement.

People used all sorts to make things. Dresses were let down again and again, and rickrack braid used to cover up the marks left by the hems. Clothing was on coupons and you had to make do and mend, Clothes were swapped around. I remember I was given a coat once. How I hated it, it was a boys coat and did up the wrong way, added to which it looked as though he’d had blown his nose on it.

I had a sweet tooth and of course sweets were rationed. Sometimes we got hold of a jelly cube and would cut it up to eat as sweets. We mixed cocoa power with a little sugar and ate that as chocolate, I used to make sweets, my best was Shredded Wheat and coca, sugar and powdered milk mixed up and rolled into balls.

We children were lucky in that we had lovely parks around us. Bushey Park and Home Park near Hampton Court, also Richmond Park. The Yanks had their camp in Bushey ark and we nearly always got gum and sweets when we went there. The Diana Pond is Bushey Park was covered over with wire and camouflage but we used to climb underneath the wire. It was very eerie. If we had galled in, nobody would have known. My sister used to have some of the Americans to tea and they always came with something for us to eat, perhaps a tin of ham or jam. Jam in those days came in huge tins, one I particularly hated was guava jam.

We made little dishes and ashtrays from old gramophone records, heating them up and shaping the while warm. Christmas decorations were scarce and we saved every bit of pretty paper we could to make them.

My dad was a great fan of Tommy Handley and we used to get tickets for the recording of his radio show which took place at the Paris Cinema in Piccadilly. Once you were in your sears you had to stay there even if a raid took place. A sign would be lit up to let you know when one was taking place. All the old stars gave me their autographs, Tommy Handley, Ernest Longstraffe, Hattie Jacque (which was very thin then, ‘Miss Mopp’ who was played by I think someone called Summers; Jack Train. They were all there.

Whilts at my cousins house in New Malden a doodle bug raid too place and we were sent to the Anderson shelter in their garden which backed on to the main London railway line. My aunt stayed in the house busy bottling Rhubarb. A bomb came down on the other side of the line. It lew us and the dog right across the shelter with everything falling down on top of us. At the house, all the windows were blown out, byt the rhubarb was still standing upright in the jars.

I was always hungru and it was very cold in winter. No central heating then. I can remember going round to my Nans to see if she had any cold potatoes or cold toast to eat — she tre nothing away. I even ate a mouldy cake once.

Anyway. A few memories of a childhood war, which might prove of interest

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