When the siren started to wail I would put on my suit and shoes and make sure
my younger brother did the same. Then I would pick up a torch and we would go
downstairs ready to go into our air raid shelter. My mother would have already
put my grandmother into the shelter and she would have made certain that at
least two candles were alight. We had to enter our Anderson shelter (which was
in the front garden) by a small doorway, go down four rungs of a small ladder,
close the wooden door behind us and pull a blanket over the whole entrance. My
father was away in the Royal Navy serving on board H.M.S. Exeter, so I felt I
was the man of the house.