By Renee Worthing 

Register Reporter   

“When I read my diaries, I realize that our days were filled with long country walks with friends, two or three trips to the pictures every week and walking for miles almost every day up the Beech Woods to the Oaks estate with Benno [family dog]. Also there was the task of picking flowers for the house and fruit for jam making, and dressmaking and darning. We went to the West End of London to clubs, shops and dances.” – Pauline Aikman, referring to a shoebox full of five years worth of tiny diaries, chronicling daily life in Sutton, Surrey, England during World War II.

“Some (diaries) were written in pencil that faded, but I remember so much,” Aikman said with a faint British accent.

In the bright living room of her Kennebunk home, art adorns the walls. Outside the windows, slate-colored juncos flit from twig to twig, foraging for seeds in the empty birdfeeders. The distinctive call of a cardinal disrupts the tranquility of the neighborhood, but not receiving a reply, the bird falls silent.

The peace outdoors is a far cry from Aikman’s recorded memories of falling bombs, decimated homes and air raid sirens that sent the residents of Sutton, Surrey scrambling to the nearest bomb shelter.

More than 68 years later, Aikman’s memory of daily life in the midst of war is sharp.

She was 19 years old when Britain declared war on Germany on Sept. 3, 1939.

“The first time an air raid siren sounded, we went out in the L-shaped trench,” she said, adding the trench next to the house was later replaced with an “Anderson” shelter.

She recalled that “gorgeous warm moonlit night” when her family took cover in the trench.

“Mum, Mim and I sat in this shelter for about an hour. Nothing happened. Then we saw Dad coming towards us with a tray loaded with teapot, cups, saucers, milk jug and sugar basin and a plate of chocolate biscuits!”

Her father, wounded twice during World War I, often refused to join his family in the trench, choosing instead to stoically wait out the danger, time and time again, she said.

Aikman began re-reading her diaries about three years ago. The records of her early life are penned in tiny diaries. The entries are simple, but powerful.

Sept. 1, 1940– Bombs all day. Out of upstairs window watched a dog-fight between RAF (Royal Air Force) Spitfires and German fighters.

Sept 2, 1940 – Very bad night. So bad that Mum joined us in the shelter.

Sept. 3, 1940– Even worse night. We were joined in shelter by Mum and Mr. & Mrs. Foster. Dad slept in the house.

The concise accounts served as prompts for more detailed memories, which Aikman also compiled into memoirs.

“The unmanned planes called Doodlebugs were the scariest,” she said.

The German “Doodlebugs” were the Fieseler Fi 103, or V-1, the first guided missile used in war. The nickname came from the sound of the sputtering engine that preceded the weapons nosedive toward earth.

“The first Doodlebug, V-1, was very noisy, and even when it was sailing right over our house, we knew we were safe and we made motions with our hands – ‘Keeping going’ we said because we knew it wouldn’t come crashing down to earth until the engine cut off.

“But later a different Doodlebug was launched over us and this one was very scary because when the engine shut off it would glide before falling to earth; we would wait in silence, listening when there was no sound at all– until the huge deafening noise of the explosion as it hit the ground, probably destroying 6 or more houses not too far away.”

Her memoirs recall Aug. 2, 1944 when she and her mother were making jam at their home called “Littlewood.”

They heard the “roar of planes” before the air raid siren sounded. The family ran for the air raid shelter outside.

“The ground shook even though we were several feet underground.”

When they emerged from the shelter, they discovered the bomb had landed not far from their home.

“Littlewood had received the full force of the explosion. Every window at the front was broke and the leaded lights hung out of the frames, just twisted pieces of lead dangling down. Our front door was blasted off its hinges, sucked out and sucked back again, erect, but without its hinges.”

Despite the daily air raid sirens and dashes for cover when bombs and missiles hit neighboring homes, Aikman, her friends and family strived to maintain a semblance of normalcy.

Her diaries tell about picking numerous fruits for canning –“But so much of our fruit picking had to be done between air raids.”

She and her friends attended dances, went on vacations and joined the English Speaking Union (ESU) where they danced with American soldiers and accompanied them on guided tours of the area.

“I don’t need my diary to remind me of Arthur Futnell, Jr., the captain of a Flying Fortress. I don’t need my dairy to remind me of sitting in the cockpit of that huge plane while Arthur told me of many missions they had been on and how I felt the affection he had for this monster which had brought him safely home time and time again.”

Even in war, life goes on.

On Sept. 20, 1940 Aikman registered at Sutton Art School of Dress Design where she learned to draw and design dresses as well as create the patterns.

During the war, material was a precious commodity and not always readily available.

“When parachute material went on sale, we all dashed out to buy it,” she said with a laugh.

Many of her sketched designs are now framed, protected from the elements by a sheet of glass.

One of her designs, featuring red and white polka dot beachwear was sewn and modeled at the art school in 1942.

“I am rather proud of that,” Aikman said. “I was only 21-years-old.”

She also sketched pictures of shoes sold at local businesses. The sketches were used in advertisements and are now also preserved behind a framed sheet of glass.

On New Years Eve in 1945, Aikman said there was a big party celebrating the end of the war.

“It was a farewell for the American soldiers,” she said. “It was the end of everything.”

“We heard the chimes of Big Ben through the open windows and sang Auld Lang Syne. Everyone was kissing everyone else. Then the band played ‘The King’ and we stood solemnly, everyone thinking of loved ones killed in the war. No one in the room was spared.”

While “no one in the room was spared” from losing a loved one during the war, death is only mentioned once in Aikman’s diaries.

“I lived in fear every day for six years,” Aikman said. “But I’ve had a wonderful life.”

Many of Aikman’s sketches and excerpts from her wartime diaries as well as a hand-written journal with illustrations will be exhibited in “Pauline Aikman – My Fashion Memoirs of WWII London,” beginning April 5 at the Wells Public Library. For more information, Wells Public Library 646-8181.

To contact Renee Worthing, email news@intheregister.com or 282-4337 ext. 240