Looking forward to book of the week next week.

Born at the end of 1939 on the other side of the pond, I have many memories of WWII as a child – the blackout curtains, the oleo margarine, the coupons, the purple heart in the windows, and Edward R. Murrow nightly broadcasts. I recall particularly his rolling out the word “propaganda” that I had to have defined.

In Lynn, an industrial city ten miles from Boston where we lived, there was an enormous General Electric plant that ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week making aircraft engines for the war effort. I can still hear the gentle “hum” of these machines on summer nights a few miles away from where we lived.

I enjoyed reading Gillian’s memory – “must have been either VE or VJ Day. I was allowed to stay up into the middle of the night to see the celebratory bonfire lit on the green in the village where my grandparents lived.”

When V-J day was declared on August 14, 1945 folks were jubilant, grabbed pots and pans, and proceeded toward the GE to celebrate. My mother impressed on my sister and me how significant that day was. Then I said to her, “Mama, can I wear my new shoes?” They were under my bed. In those days new shoes had to be worn to mass first, then saved for the “first day of school.” When she said yes, I knew it was a big day indeed!

My mum started work as a secretary at the Air Ministry a few weeks before the war started so her late teens/early 20s were spent commuting from Upminster to London, dodging bomb damage and wondering if there would be a train to get home at night. Like others Gillian mentions, she just took it in her stride because it was normal life. She’s 98 with Alzheimer’s now and although she can’t remember what she had for lunch, she can vividly recall being stuck on a train over the Thames in an air raid when all the lights were turned out and being holed up in a pub cellar overnight because an unexploded bomb had blocked the road to her house.

I’m so glad you’ve introduced me to Gillian Tindall GA.