The war was on when I started school, and if the siren went off to signal an air raid we had to pick up a small mat which was on a hook at the side of our infant school tables and then form a line, and quietly file out to the air raid shelter in the boys playground, where we sat and sang songs like “One man went to Mow”. Serena Hunt b 1939
There was a great big air raid shelter in the boys playground next to the houses, by the school garden, that ran from the toilet block, right the way down to the wall. It was a huge air raid shelter. You used to go to school with your gas mask, and on the edge of your desk there was a little tiny mat hanging there. The siren went, you grabbed your gas mask and mat and marched across to the shelter. Nick Chandler b 1937
Tag Archives: Serena Dias de Deus
Serena Dias de Deus: Early Years
I was born in South Street in 1939 in an old house, Grove Cottage, next to Grove House. We had no bathroom so it was washing in a bowl daily and a bath in a large tin bath dragged into the warm kitchen on Saturday night.
Those were the days when we knew all our neighbours and helped each other out in hard times. I remember many a delicious chocolate cake being passed over the wall of Grove House by Mrs Ablitt, – the Ablitts owned the butchers shop in the High Street and were Mollie Mallett’s parents.
One of my very early memories was of Mrs Lansdowne on the other side making me a cardboard Snowman covered in cotton wool full of tiny little gifts all individually wrapped.
Serena nee Hunt b 1939
South St. 2013