Joy Shellard recalls her wartime experiences. 11 years old at the outset of the Second World War, she lived in a ground floor flat at the Russell Cotes Museum in Bournemouth where her father was curator.

Why the Home Front? There are two reasons. As is well known, everyone living in the United Kingdom and not in the armed forces but yet enduring the dangers and privations of war and doing one's bit to win the war, was considered to be part of the Home Front. The further suitability of the use of ‘Home Front' appertained to the locality.

As a child, during the war, I lived in the delightful town of Bournemouth and when there were threats of invasion, we were directly situated in the area where the Germans were most likely to invade. In fact, after the German blitzkrieg through Holland, Belgium and France, the South Coast became an area of restriction where it was difficult to obtain entry but very easy to leave and the population diminished rapidly; needless to say, there were no holidaymakers to swell the population in the summer.

Furthermore, my father worked and we all lived at the Russell Cotes Museum on the cliff top surrounded by hotels which were soon deserted and then commandeered by the armed forces. For a time we seemed to be the only living beings occupying the cliff top until the overseas air force boys and the American soldiers began to occupy the former luxurious hotels such as the famous Royal Bath, the Carlton, the White Hermitage and Marsham Court, to name but a few.