| When I was 4 years old my parents took me to live in Toronto in Canada. We lived in a house that was half a mile from the beach of Lake Ontario. My father was a mechanical engineer and went to work in Detroit USA in the car industry. We went to see him and on the way we went to see Niagara Falls, where you can take a boat trip under the falls. You dressed in a waterproof cape.
My school and Collegiate where I had my education was on the edge of the Vergin forest a mile or so the other way from the beach.
I came back to England in 1937-38 in January 1938. We left New Brunswick just before Christmas 1937 and spent Christmas and New Year on the boat, as it took 10 days to get to Liverpool docks. The first things we saw at dawn were the Liver Birds sitting on top of the Liver Buildings. It was a magnificent sight.
On the way to England we saw another frightening sight, a very large Iceberg about half a mile away.
Arriving in London we spent a few days with my aunt, before we got a house in Plumstead common, where we lived until the war was declared in September 3rd 1939. Just after that we moved to Welling. At the beginning of the war my father went to work in the Woolwich Arsenal making parts for tanks I think . My sister also worked there making bombs.
My Father later worked on the Mulberry Harbour project in Victoria docks, and it was pulled over to France for the D Day landing. It was brought back to England and most of it is now sitting in Falmouth River in Cornwall. I worked at Siemans and Standard Telephones & Co. making radio parts for the aeroplanes. We worked all through the war and never once went to any shelter. To get to work there were often no buses running and we sometimes had to get lifts from lorries where we all crammed into the open back, or walked.
Once when going home to welling the German planes were returning to there base after unloading their bombs on London, they machined gunned us at Welling corner and we all had to throw ourselves to the ground and lie flat until they went over.
I carried on working and living in Welling until 1943 when I married and went to live in Charlton Village. My husband was in Bomb Disposal. One day we were going home and saw a VI rocket overhead we just managed to get to the front door as it came down and I was hit on the shoulder and arm and down the side by the blast. I was off work for six weeks with my injuries.
When the war ended I gave up work to have my first child in 1946 and second child in 1951. By this time my husband was working at Molins Engineering Co. on the electrical side of the company. He designed the electronic side of the machinery. He was often sent abroad for the company and later on I was able to go on holiday with the family to most of the countries where he lectured, which I enjoyed very much.
When he retired we still carried on going abroad.
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