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I can remember the aircraft coming over. They used to drop pieces of silver paper which I later found out was called “window” to block the radar. Well, we kids used to go and collect it and take it to school. Our teacher warned us that we shouldn’t pick it up, and promptly confiscated it. Of course, we still picked it up, just didn’t take it into school anymore!

Every year on Empire Day, May 24th, we would have our school sports day. The parents would always come along to cheer, and the Parson would give a little speech. The Parson was one of the important people in the community at the time and was looked up to. My father used to refer to the “three P’s, the Parson, the Publican and the Policeman”, and used to say that they “should move on every three years or they became too familiar”. Anyway, I remember this one year that the Parson called on us to “leave one piece of jelly and one cake for the little black children in our Empire who are starving”. I don’t know how it was supposed to make any practical difference, but I always remember it.

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