Eagle Day memories of a four year old.

My father had to stay at his work on fire duty. When the air raid sirens sounded my mother and I went to the slit trench, sat on a wooden bench and watched the German air armada fly across on their way to London. There were so many, and the air was heavy with the smell of hot oil, bakelite burning, and cordite. You could see our fighters weaving through the German formations. But all we could hear was the heavy thrumming of the German planes. As a schoolboy, I had to go with my gas mask, my night things in a little suitcase, and a label tied to my coat, with my name and address on it. When the raids started, we would hear the siren and all troop out to our air-raid shelter. These were cold, damp, and dark, where we learnt our tables, sometimes we wrote on slates if there was enough light, and we all could write our name and address, and a relative's phone number if needed. I was often stopped by the local policeman and my label was checked.

One day walking to school, the class was fired at by a Me109, our teacher picked us all up and put us over the churchyard wall, and I landed in the stinging nettles. When I got home I asked mother for some cream for the nettle rash, and explained why I was in the nettles. A rather grim mother told me to wash my hands and get ready for dinner. When dad got home she told him about my story of being shot up. Dad came up to me and gave me a cuddle, looked at mother and told us both how Jerry was shot down just before West Malling Airfield. Mother went all tearful then, and I got cuddles from her as well.