wartime
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Townsend Road air raid shelter
Read more →In the early months of the war, the government issued two million Anderson shelters to homes in cities likely to be bombed. They were issued free to those earning less than £250 a year (the average wage then was about £300. £300 was the equivalent in purchasing power today of about £25,000. Anderson shelters, named […]
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A Chesham Man at War – the Story of WJ Dell
Read more →This is the account of the war of WJ Dell, a Pednor resident, aged 14, when war broke out. I was 14 when war broke out in 1939 and weighed just 6st and was 5ft tall – in common with others who had just left school. I worked for a local baker, the lowest form […]
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Memories of Chesham in the 1930s and 1940s
Read more →My happiest days that I remember were from 1936 to 1939. I lived at 8 Market Square, where my father had a furniture and general store, later a men’s outfitters. His father John had come to Chesham from London around 1890 and started a business at 44 Church Street. My bedroom was on the top […]
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Kath Dolling (nee Smith) and evacuation
Read more →THE wail of air-raid sirens over Penge, South-East London on Sunday 3rd September 1939 dramatically changed the life of eight-year-old Kathie Smith. She had lived as a shy, only child, with her partially-sighted Mum and elderly Dad, a retired merchant seaman and widower. Kath was born when her mother was 45 and Dad 66! The […]
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My War 1944
Read more →The following extract is from a letter written to Home on the Normandy Beach Heads, by myself M A Sabatini, Royal Navy Leading Ship’s Mechanic, which was never sent. It lay in my rucksack until I was demobbed in 1946, and was only looked at occasionally, until the 50th anniversary of the landings. There is […]
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Memories of a wartime childhood
Read more →I was born before the Second World War, in July 1939. I don’t remember very much until I was about 3. From then on I was aware that the sound of the air raid sirens meant trouble. Whenever German bombers were approaching, the sirens started with a loud, eerie WoooOOOOooooOOOOooooOOOOoooo noise. That meant we had […]