Joan Hughes (Martin, 1941-45)
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FLYING BOMBS AND FRUSTRATIONS
There were two quiet months in the summer term in 1944, but before we broke up for the summer holidays, air raid sirens were heard even at Colchester County High School for Girls.
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In the hot July days of 1944, Middle Five A was in a relaxed mood. We had completed our most important exams of the year and had had the results. Almost everyone in the class was shown to be of School Certificate standard, so the teacher was allowing us to chat. But suddenly we heard a sound we had not heard for a very long time. The intermittent, strident note of an air raid siren. "You'll have to go to the shelter."
Joan Hughes, who died some years ago, wrote comprehensive memories of the school during the wartime years. She had been evacuated from London to family members in Lawford, in 1941. We have received permission to use these memories and will print extracts from time to time. Any feedback would be interesting!
There was some protest in the class, because we felt it was probably a false alarm. Everything was deathly quiet. Nevertheless, we trooped to the air raid shelter, which we had not used before. It was situated at the far end of the school playing fields. We were unused to its dimly lit interior.
However, I thought that it was absurd to get worried, because Colchester could not possibly have air raids such as I had experienced four years ago in London, which were always accompanied by a cacophony of sound, in which gun-fire, falling bombs, collapsing masonry and breaking glass were mixed. We strained our ears but continued to hear no external noise. I thought Marion was absurdly nervous when she started shivering, and saying that she was worried. Most of the girls were sitting quietly with our French teacher, Miss Chapman, who thought this a good opportunity to practice our French, so we given short sentences to translate orally into French. We sat for the space of an hour until the continuous note of the All Clear sounded.
There had been no sounds either of gunfire, or of bombs. We had read about a new kind of flying bomb, one of which was supposed to have hit London recently, but had not taken it seriously. We did not discuss the war overmuch, considering that the tide was on the turn, and that it was only a matter of time, for all Europe to be free. What we may have discussed was our reduced rations. On the food front things were getting worse, not better. At least there was not yet any bread rationing. When we emerged from the shelter, we just laughed about the so-called air raid.
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