Features | Sheltered schemes

A childhood during WW2

One of our residents, Mrs Josie Longyear of Causeway Farm in Horndean, has kindly given us this amazing story about growing up during the war…

I was living in Bristol Road in Southsea with my parents when war broke out. When the bombing started, my aunt in Denmead suggested to my mother that it might be wise to move out to the country, as she knew of a house to let in her village.

As we went to visit it, my mother and I were walking down Mead End Road when a German plane suddenly appeared and swooped down the road shooting at us. My mother pulled me into the ditch and we lay there terrified as bullets flew all around us. Miraculously we were not hit and made our way back to my aunts. There were troops camped in the Forest of Bere and we assumed that was who they were targeting.

Despite this we did move to Denmead and later in the war I had another amazing escape. A group of local children were playing conkers in a field when two German planes flew low and shot at us. They killed two cows but no children were hurt. Village life turned out to be not so safe after all!