Time Team

The Wartime Watcher's Story

"I am enjoying the very last drop, of my very last bottle of Polish lemonade. Now, I am going to push it into the sand at the back of this Anderson shelter - that way I don't have to carry it home, and I could leave a note in it - some child in the future may find it, and think it's a message from a ship-wrecked sailor - that would be fun! Some fun and laughter is what we need these days.

This is not so fun though really - we have been in the shelter for an hour now, while German bombers fly over us. It won't be long we hope... ahhhh, there's the 'all clear' siren now. We can get out in the wonderful open air again, and keep awake.

We are working hard even though we have finished building the line of anti-tank blocks along the shoreline. That was really hard work, for each one we had to create a mould from timber and/or corrugated iron, then mix and pour in the concrete, let it set and then use the mould for the next one and so on. The only mechanical help we had was a railway line that brought the raw materials in from Tayport, the rest was up to us! Then there were the gun emplacements and the observation platforms to build. It is very easy and quick using concrete and metal it must be admitted. Rolls of barbed wire are used everywhere, to keep attackers out.

I feel it is a very wild place here, with a lot of wildlife, a bit like where I come from on the coast of Poland, near Gdansk. How I miss it! Very nice in peacetime, but not so easy to enjoy with survival our main concern. Our days are now taken up with manning the observation and gunnery posts - it is quite tiring looking across the sea and into the sky for long periods, we take it in turns, it can be very boring we smoke a lot, read and play cards to use up the time.

We can't complain, our families are still suffering living under German rule - probably hungry. We at least escaped and can fight for the freedom of our country with the British and their allies. We are fed and sheltered nearby at Kinshaldy - a nice place, sheltered by the plantation."

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