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| Mum, Dennis and Dad in the sea at the Isle of Wight, c1938. |
Me and Dennis chopping wood on the Isle of Wight c1938. |
Dennis, Mum and Dad on a pier, Isle of Wight, c1938. |
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| Me in a canoe, with Dennis in the back, Isle of Wight c1938. |
Mum, Dennis and me on a cliff path on the Isle of Wight, c1938. |
Dad, Mum, Dennis and my Aunt Lill in the garden at Warlingham, 1939. |
From the studio window we would watch the annual Lord Mayors Show and I was able to film the 1938 show as it passed through Ludgate Circus. The theme for that year was "Fitness wins!" because there was a concern over the health of the nation.
War was inevitable. In 1938 and 1939 we went from one crisis to another. On 13th March 1938 Germany invaded and annexed Austria, and this 'Anschluss' met no resistance. On 29th September 1938 the British Prime Minister Chamberlain went to Germany and signed the Munich Pact. He returned waving a piece of paper and saying "Peace in our time" but few people believed him. The agreement gave Hitler the part of Czechoslovakia called The Sudetenland but on the 10th of March 1939 Germany took the remainder. We had by now been issued with gas masks and later with an Anderson Shelter which was buried in the garden. By August we all knew that if Germany entered Poland, which was more than likely, we would be at war. On 3rd September Britain and France declared war on Germany.
Everyone thought there would be air raids on Britain but not much happened in this time that we called the 'phoney war'. So ended my second decade with the future looking very dangerous!
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