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Interview with Mick Kettleborough
Michael Kettleborough lived in Woodhall Spa during the war. His mother billeted RAF crew members in her home. One of them Jack Gibson asked for an early Christmas as there were some big operations coming up. Shortly before Christmas 1941 the…
Interview with Rita Chapman
Rita Chapman lived in London during the Blitz. She witnessed the sight of the burning docks from her garden. Her family sheltered in their Anderson shelter but twice got buried and had to be dug out. The rescue crews asked them to keep singing until…
Interview with Posy Clarke
Posy Clarke had an idyllic childhood in the house her parents renovated in Kingshill. They were very great friends with Air Chief Marshall Harris and his family who lived next door and who often visited for meals and drinks. Posy and Jackie Harris…
Interview with Thea Coleman
Thea Coleman was born in 1933 in Holland. She experienced the invasion of her country and the increasing restrictions. When walking once with her father they were forced to stand and wait while prisoners were brought out of prison and executed while…
Interview with Thomas Eric Chad Cushing
Tom Cushing lived alongside the site of what became RAF Little Snoring in Norfolk. He watched the construction of the airfield over time and the daily life of the operational squadrons thereafter. After the war he continued to be interested in the…
Interview with Freda Dakin
Born in Salford, just outside of Manchester, Freda was a teenager during the Second World War. She recalls her family's culture, school life, meal requirements and how she reacted to the war being declared. She also recounts her experiences of…
Interview with Tony Dyer
Tony Dyer was a three or four year old child when his grandfather took him to the cinema in Reading on the 10th of February 1943. As Tony was ironically watching the animation of a bomber and a tank on the Pathé News segment a bomb hit the nearby…
Interview with John Fisher
John Fisher was born six weeks after his father was killed on an operation over Germany. He became more and more curious about what had happened to his father and finding out more about him and the events leading up to his death as he got older.…
Interview with Raymond George Goss
Raymond Goss lived on the family farm at Westcott before, during and after the construction and occupation of RAF Westcott as 11 Operational Training Unit. One evening a Lancaster collided with a Wellington on the field and both exploded. The Goss…
Interview with Nora Hailey
Nora Hailey was born in Portsmouth, and then the family moved to Eastney. Before the German bombing she was evacuated to her Auntie’s in Worthing. After a few weeks nothing happened so they went back to Portsmouth. When the bombing began she and…
Interview with Ken Hayton
Ken Hayton’s father, George Stanley Hayton (Stan), worked worked for Lloyds Bank. In 1940 Stan left his post to join the Royal Air Force; Ken recalled going to Durham station to see his father off, travelling to start basic training at RAF Padgate.…
Interview with Richard Heath
Richard Heath remembers watching Lancaster aeroplanes flying in the skies above him from his back yard and listening to the sound of them fade into the night. One morning he could see red flares exploding in fields nearby where a Lancaster from…
Interview with Betty Hedges
Betty Hedges grew up in South London in the final years before the war and she recalls a happy childhood. She describes a close family and community life where the children played unworried in the streets and she talks about the games they played and…
Interview with Johanna Heslam
Johanna Heslam was a young child when Holland was occupied. The family had to move on several occasions because their area was being used for military purposes. Johanna experienced increasing loss as shortages began of clothing and then food. Even…
Interview with Margaret Hodgin
Margaret’s family lived in Fiskerton and her first memory of war time, when she was seven and her brother four, was of her father digging a shelter in the garden. The children would walk or cycle to Reepham school.
Margaret was about eleven when…
Margaret was about eleven when…
Interview with Pauline Holloway
Pauline Holloway grew up in Harrow and turned eighteen one month before the end of the Second World War. She recollects listening to Churchill’s speeches on the radio, sheltering during air attacks in a purpose-built extension to her house, and…
Interview with Jack and Jean Howes
Jack Howes was born in 1933 in Nottingham. His father was a machine engineer and by the start of the war they were living in Lincoln where he worked for Ruston-Bucyrus. His father was then transferred to Grantham where he lived during the week. His…
Interview with Joy Joy. One
Joy Joy was evacuated from Hull at the start of the war. She returned home for Christmas. She was again evacuated as the bombings began. She took responsibility for her younger sister although she was only six years old herself and she says that from…
Interview with Colin Lloyd
Colin Lloyd was born in 1933 in Torksey, Lincolnshire. He recalls hearing Mr. Chamberlain’s broadcast on Sunday 3rd September 1939. His father got a job in 1942 at the gravel pits near Whisby and they moved to that area. Colin describes being close…
Interview with Mike Cope
Mike is the adopted brother of James (known as Sonny) who was in the Royal Air Force with 460 Squadron. The crew were all English apart from the Australian pilot. James was a wireless operator/mid-upper air gunner. Mike was seven in 1943 when his…
Interview with Iris McClements. Two
Iris McClements remembers being issued with a gas mask at the age of 11, before the war started. Her family moved to Eldwick when she was about 13 to avoid the bombs. She joined the Women’s Junior Air Corps and recalls being issued with a bucket,…
Interview with Ann Mullin
Ann Mullin’s father, Sergeant George Fredrick Bedwell was killed in action. She found it difficult to come to terms with the loss. She found it impossible to visit his grave although she lived in Germany after the war.
Interview with Margaret Ottaway
Margaret Ottaway lived in Louth, the sixth of seven children, and tells of her childhood there. Tells of an air raid shelter they had in the house. Witnessed, as a seven year old, an enemy air raid on 19 February 1941, which caused damage and…