I was born in Portsmouth in 1940 during an air raid and after my birth my Mother and me had to be evacuated out of the building on a stretcher. We lived a short distance away and I remember hearing German Bombers overhead and feeling the bedroom shudder to the distant muffled explosions.

Another time a doodlebug stopped its engines overhead and exploded nearby!! At only 4 years of age I can still remember my older Sister running up the stairs and grabbing me and the ginger cat in her arms and taking us out to the gardens temporary bomb shelter which had two rows of wooden seats facing each other. There were three adults and two children. I was under one of the seats and peaking through the slightly open door and I saw an incendiary bomb land in a galvanised bath which was on a wooden table. The metal bath turned red and the table collapsed into a burning pile. I am 85 now but can still see it clearly.