I remember when...

I REMEMBER when the war began,

The sirens would sound at night,

We'd get up, dress and wonder about,

Yet there'd not be a bomber in sight,

So we'd yarn away to the neighbours.

The boys would go scrumping for fruit

Over the gardens where people were evacuated,

Then they'd come back with their loot.

Things soon changed, the bombers came

We could hear them overhead.

We had changed too, we didn't get up

Till the crash warning went, then fled

Into the shelter, we'd run for our lives.

As the ack-ack guns fired on a plane

There we'd sit till a quiet time came,

Make some tea, then dash back again.

Yes, the bombers came by night and day

They bombed dear old Lowestoft a lot.

Sometimes you'd get caught away from home,

Just hoped things would not get too hot.

The boys just went in the Home Guard

Then volunteered for the forces to fight

While we continued to play hide and seek

When the bombers came into sight.

Then came the doodle bugs, nasty things,

You could hear them in the sky,

When the engine suddenly stopped

You knew great danger was nigh.

Many folks lost their homes,

Many lives were lost in the fray,

Six blooming years we weathered the storm

Till at last the great victory day.

I was in the Methodist Chapel, in Commodore Road at Sunday School, when we heard war was declared.

MARGUERITE LAYTON

Lowestoft