Published in Windlesora 36 (2020)
© WLHG
I spent the war years in Windsor because my father was serving with the Household Cavalry in Combermere Barracks. We lived in Adelaide Square.
In 1939 everyone was issued with a cardboard box with a gas mask in it. I remember proudly carrying mine over my shoulders as I went to school on Bachelors’ Acre, but why did my mother forget to take our gas masks with us on a shopping trip to Slough? It was compulsory to carry a gas mask at all times, and this time we were caught out. As we came out of Suters, the department store, a siren went off to indicate a gas attack. This was not, however, an enemy attack, but instigated by the local authorities in order to remind people to carry their gas masks. Canisters of tear gas were let off, and mum and I ran for a bus back to Windsor with tears streaming down our cheeks.
Another vivid memory was the day my mother took me to the pictures in Windsor. It was the Empire in Peascod Street which stood where the Post Office is today. I can’t remember which film we saw, but according to the Windsor newspapers, The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn was showing at the Empire on that day, 24 October 1940. What I do remember was a mighty crash, which shook the cinema, and the sound of guns. On our way home we found that a bomb had hit and demolished the public house called the Hand and Glove, close by Victoria Barracks (now a Chinese Restaurant). We had to pick our way home through the rubble and dust in William Street, Victoria Street, and Alexandra Road. Later we found that the Windsor anti-aircraft gun had gone into action for the first time on that day.
Five years later was VE Day; I was 14 and part of a gang of youths who planned to go to London to celebrate, but my mother would not let me go. My father was then in Germany, having been part of the invasion. I spent the day in solitude, thinking of my pals who were enjoying themselves in London.
Geoff Goody
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