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This story has been submitted to the People’s War website by Anne Wareing of the Lancashire ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Guard on behalf of Pat Crank and has been added to the site with her permission…

I was 9 years old when war started and living in Ilford, Essex on the edge of London.

Close by to where we lived was Fairlop aerodrome and before the war I had flown in a pleasure trip on a bi plane from there. But now the field was surrounded by guns and huge barrage balloons.

Soon after the outbreak of war in September 1939 I went to stay with an Aunt in Lewes for 3 months, where there was no bombing. My parents remained in London.

I was brought back home in December but as all the schools were closed, any children that were not evacuated had lessons in somebody's front room.

In June 1940 I was sent to stay with some friends of my parents near Chesham in Buckinghamshire where I attended the village school. The friends I stayed with also had their nephew from London staying with them and when the London blitz started they had people to stay every weekend to give them a night's sleep.

One afternoon coming home from school I remember watching a 'dog fight' and hearing the planes weaving in and out over our heads and not realizing what the airmen were going through.

After two years I was brought back to Ilford and went to school at Wanstead High. the 'doodlebug' raids on London started in June 1944 and after a day spent mainly either under our desks, or in the air raid shelter, the school was closed. My family then moved to Stevenage for the duration of the war.

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