Somerset

I Want To Fly.

As a child I used to watch target-towing aircraft fly down the channel past the gunnery range at Doniford,...

Vera's Birthday Trip - Evacuation

We then walked to a house where London neighbours had a small coach house to themselves because there was a...

Rosemary's Tribute

I was born in 1935 in Mottingham SE9 into a family called Phillips, a happy extended family with...

A Collection of Memories by John Rawlings - Chapter 3

The responsibility was laid at the door of the officer who had failed to ensure that all vehicles were...

Clarendon Road Lives.

In 1931, my father Gilbert Taylor who was born in 1900 and my mother Violet House who was born in 1905...

The Story of Bevin's Babes: Chapter 2

Austria — the “Austrian Auschluss” - in which several of her family perished, she...

Childhood: Elsie's Story September 1939: Evacuated from London to Bath

I was getting very used to this new life when my mother came down to Bath for a visit and then told...

Whirlwind from Somerset

Even before the Battle of Britain began we boys were aware that a new and faster fighter named the...

Colin's Evacuation Experiences

After eight weeks, when the bombing was less severe, my mother and I returned home to find that whilst we...

The Beginning: A Soldier in the Royal Engineers

In the event the CO at that unit was incredibly pompous and having been indulged by the WW1 officers at...

War Years 1939/1945: Childhood Memories of Colliers Wood and Somerset

In June 1944 just after the D-Day landings in France the Germans launched an onslaught of flying bombs...

Memories of Evacuation 1940-44

There was a walled kitchen garden where Miss Elizabeth grew anything from asparagus and cucumbers in a cold...

A Childhood: Evacuated to Somerset (Part 3)

Iloved the openness,the freshness,the tranquility,the aroma and the sunny daysThose days when Mrs Cook and...

A London Evacuee in Somerset

Three months later mum, dad and my younger sister and brother came to visit. Bombs started dropping nearby...

Lambert's War

My father served in the 8th Army REME and his rank as shown on his release certificate, was W/WOI I...

Memories of Serving with the A.T.S. during 1940.

Remember feeling great indignation when a female colleague, much older than I, was promoted to Lance...

Evacuation - a personal reminiscence: From London to Shepton Beauchamp

I remember the day when our hearts were raised, the day when one of the villagers said to Mum...

My Only Work Experience Placement or Alternatively 'Captured'

Coming out of Stoke St. Michael on the road to Waterlip and Branmore, the first and largest quarry was...

Things Remembered

The Geordies, the Scousers, the Scots or the Taffies from Wales... The biggest German aircraft was a six...

An Italian Prisoner of War Remembers Somerset

Eventually he arrived at a PoW camp just outside the village of Goathurst, near Bridgwater, in Somerset; at...

Life at the Windwhistle Inn

Beneath a canopy of beeches, the Windwhistle Inn of 17 century origins, standing on a ridge of 800 feet...

A little Lad's War: Bath Blitz, War Effort, Father Preparing Civil Servants for Germany

Dad in the mean time had joined the NFS having been released from the obligation of Guerilla Warfare based...

A Childhood: Evacuated to Somerset (Part 1)

Mum and Dad had five children at the time `war broke out`.We lived in a three bedroomed flat in Homerton...

The Bath Blitz

We had two near misses; one bomb hit Colborne Road close to the Wansdyke Inn about 100 yards away and...

No Fixed Abode: My Evacuation Story

I was evacuated from London with my school, the Charles Edward Brookes School, to the village of East Coker...

When a German Bomber Crashed at Puriton

With the same, I heard a screech of tyres, a sports car - later to be found to be an MG -...