Reality of Life in England

Heroes Remember

Reality of Life in England

Transcript

The first night we were there, in London, there was an air raid, and that to hear that siren going that was a... it was pretty emotional. We had a... we had a... you could smell supper cooking, they put us up in this hotel that the air force had taken over and uh... we thought oh we’re having fish and chips for supper, and we went down to eat and uh... it was deep-fried spam. We had to go out and look for a place ourselves, and we really didn’t know anything about London, and they told us... because uh...we didn’t live in barracks, if a bomb had hit the barracks well we would have all of been killed and if we’re scattered around London well it... would be just one or two of us get killed so, which was, that was kind of a... we were kind of wondering well what are we doing here? When we’d go to work in the morning and there would be a building that disappeared overnight from, from the bombing and then uh... to go in the underground and see these families, you know they, they spent all their time down in the underground... for the bomb shelters you know. Little children, they had like bunk beds down there, you know, it was, that wasn’t very nice.

Description

Mrs. Cawston recalls her arrival in England with the sounds of sirens from the air raids and the sight of local people living underground to escape the devastation

Sue Cawston

Mrs. Sue Cawston was born February 19, 1923 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Spending her younger years in Vancouver, Sue always had a keen sense of adventure to join the military. Her father served in WWI. Sue became a member of the Women’s Division, Royal Canadian Air Force. In Canada service in the administrative field was where she began her military career but because of her desire to go overseas she continued to request this provision and was soon granted permission to go. Sue worked and lived in London, England in the administrative office doing various office duties. After 2 years, 9 months of service Mrs. Cawston was discharged and returned to Canada. Mrs. Cawston settled back to Vancouver and raised a family.

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