3rd September 1939

I was born in 1934 so my memories of ww2 are like a series of photographs.
In the August of 1939 the Higgins family: Father, Albert; Mother, Gladys; Elder son, Eddie and me, the younger son, Douglas went down to Weymouth for the annual holiday. After a week my Father who was Clerk to Hayes and Harlington Urban District Council was summoned to return to his desk because of the possibility of war.

The Sunday morning of 3rd September 1939 is fossilised for ever in my memory and is the first faded photograph of WWII why we should be in the hall I cannot recall: Mum and Dad were standing by the kitchen door' Eddie, my brother who was 19, perched on the telephone desk and me aged 5 half way up the stairs looking on, sensing that something momentous was about to happen but too young to understand. But I could see Mum had tears in her eyes.

Eleven o'clock struck on Big Ben and a man's voice, Mr Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, filtered into the silence of the hall. I had never known a silence like this before or seen such worry etched on my family’s faces - what did it all mean? Apparently we were at war with Germany? What was war and who was Germany? Whatever it was my family were unhappy and sad. I rushed down the stairs and clung to my Mother who was gently sobbing, I had never seen her cry before and I hated the man on the wireless for making her cry. When the man had finished talking my brother opened the front door and said he was going to 'join up'. My Mother attempted to stop him but the front door slammed... that is what is on my faded photograph.

Eddie joined the Royal Artillery and went to war. He married a Bristol girl and later served in the Far East - as far as I know he never talked about it - like so many others.

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