I was shopping for fruit and veggies in Maple Market last week, when an emergency vehicle sped by, siren wailing.

Instantly, I was a child again in southeast England in the summer of 1940, the sirens warning of the arrival of another wave of bombers.

We lived on the coast on the edge of the wide pathway that connected the enemy's airfields in occupied France with London and the industrial centres inland. Fighter aircraft from an airfield close by rose to meet incoming bombers above our house. As we watched, some of the bombers fell from the sky in flames, others turned away, dropping their bombs on us.

We were the only children living on our street. Our family hadn't left when the first two waves of children were evacuated to the heart of the country as the bombs began to fall and invasion threatened - and here we were right in the middle of the Battle of Britain.

Many of the houses close to us were empty and in their gardens fruit was ripening: apples, pears, plums, damsons, gooseberries, raspberries, loganberries, black and red currants. The weather that summer was fine and here it was local harvest time with no one to bring in the riches but my brother and me and the few other children who had stayed in the village.

Mum was uneasy at first, but we argued, with our simple children's logic, that to let the fruit fall to the earth and rot where it would be welcomed by wasps and rats was not the way to beat Hitler.

We grew our own vegetables as part of the Dig for Victory campaign but, apart from a single damson tree, we had no fruit.

Mum reluctantly agreed.

At first we foraged at random, but then we felt that Mum should have some say in the selection and so we reported on availability, and gathered to order.

There were soldiers in the area building concrete defences and preparing to make life difficult for the invaders. We realized that we could do even more for the war effort by sharing our bounty with them.

You can imagine their delight, fed every day as they were on British wartime army rations, to have grinning children arrive with baskets overflowing with fresh fruit. It wasn't long before we were taking special orders for them too; and occasionally trading berries for thick bully beef sandwiches.

Sometimes we crouched in the air raid shelter, or we would be out collecting fruit when the bombs started to fall and we had to hide, but despite the noise and destruction, my memory of those long weeks of summer is of light and warmth and laughter and having rich food to eat.

But it couldn't last. In preparation for invasion the enemy High Command had given the order to destroy all British fighter airfields, and, if possible, their aircraft on the ground.

On August 12th, 14th, 20th and 24th there were heavy raids on our local airfield, and as the bombers and fighters flew low overhead and the bombs exploded close by, it was time for us to go.

The day we left was the day of the heaviest raid. As we stood outside, waiting for the car to take us to the railway station, the sky above and behind us was dark with attacking bombers and defending fighters, and as we drove away, bombs were falling and black smoke was rising in huge threatening shapes behind us.

It would be four and a half years before we saw our house again.