Hard Times But Good Memories

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from Radio Suffolk on behalf of Shirley Angel and has been added to the site with her permission. Shirley Angel understands the site's terms and conditions.

My father worked at the aerodrome and my mother got a job with an insurance company. When war broke out my brother was seven years old and I was nine. We had an Anderson’s shelter in the garden but we never used it; I remember it as being full of spiders. We lived in Cricklewood and although close to the Handley Page factory (it built aeroplane parts and was considered a likely target)there was no bombing around. To my brother and me the sound of the pom pom guns was just as game. I remember my brother collecting shrapnel and my mother digging up her beloved flower garden in order to grow vegetables.

Eventually we were sent off to Salcombe. We drove down and considered it to be just a holiday although we went to the local school.

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