This article was one of a series of short articles about people’s memories of the war printed in the Souvenir Programme produced for events in Radley organised to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of VE Day on 8 May 1995.

Jean came to Radley as an adult to help look after her mother, who’d had a stroke. Her parents were then living in a cottage in Lower Radley. After her parents died she lived in north Abingdon but retained her connection with Radley until the end of her life.

When war broke out, I was living in Stanford-le-Hope in Essex. A friend and I were playing in the garden when the siren suddenly boomed out. We were terrified. My friend ran home and I ran into the house shouting ‘Daddy’. The house was empty so you can imagine how I felt. I sat on the stairs sobbing when suddenly my father came running in. He had been next door talking about what was going to happen.

I was just five years old. We slept in a shelter in the garden where I felt safe. I was evacuated for just a year in 1940 to Surrey, then went home to Essex. Occasionally we would visit my great aunt in Radley. That meant a train ride to London and then a train from Paddington to Radley.

Memories

• Of the houses that had been bombed in the road where I lived.
• Seeing large offices, a hospital and a church in ruins. The hospital beds were hanging out of the sides of the floors.
• Cakes and pancakes made from dried eggs.
• Helping my mother cut up marrow into small squares, adding pineapple essence, sugar and water to make a bowl of pineapple.
• Standing in the garden watching the doodlebugs go over. If the engine stopped, we lay flat on the ground.
• Sadness in our family as my second cousin in Radley was killed during the war. We all loved him and he is remembered on the war memorial in Radley.
• Happiness in school when the siren went – into the shelter to read comics and books.
• Fear was with me but we were taught to put on a brave face.
• Happiness when I was ten and the war was over. I hope it never happens again.

Radley during the war years was to me a quiet oasis. I loved visiting. There didn’t seem to be any fear. My aunts carried on as usual but Aunty Florrie who lived at 110 Lower Radley had an evacuee called Edwin. He was 13, I was 7 and I thought he was wonderful. He stayed until the end of the war and came back regularly.

VE day
I was woken up by my mother coming into the room and telling me the war was over in Europe. How happy we were. Flags were put out on the houses. Everybody was happy except that our neighbour was still a prisoner of war in Japan. We would not be happy until that part of the world was at peace.

Note: Jean’s second cousin, Leslie Ambridge Smith, was a sergeant in the Royal Artillery. He was killed on 28 November 1941 aged 36 at Tobruk during the North Africa campaign. His mother Mary and Jean’s grandmother Lucy were daughters of Charles Ambridge, the first stationmaster at Radley Station.