Living with Harold and Hitler: A WWII Memoir

Childhood Memories of WWII in Britain

Harold and I walked slowly up the street, as if in a trance. We gazed at the houses in Wesley Avenue, pleasantly surprised that so little had changed in over half a century. Despite the restrictions of war, the rationing and the ‘black-outs’, our childhood was not an unhappy one. Life was simpler then.

Memories came flooding back: the air raids and the shelter in our backyard, the huge black rabbit that frightened our mother, searching for shrapnel after an air raid, and Harold and his pals collecting German memorabilia -  much to my mother’s consternation.

Our father, a major in the British Army, was serving in India for three years. While war raged on in Europe he had no connection to events playing out in Britain. Sadly, to Harold and me he became a distant memory. It was our mother to whom we clung. She kept us safe from Hitler’s bombs and Harold’s hair-raising escapades. Fortunately, she never knew about the unexploded incendiary bomb he brought home one day.