Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2009/January 2010 | Page 32

life

INTERVIEW

Barbara
Haden’s
wartime
memories
Often wartime memories can conjure up a sense of jollity in the
face of tragedy as people pulled together to keep life going.
Barbara Haden was less concerned about bombs and bullets than
about the threat of invasion. As a young woman in Carisbrooke
she was privy to insider knowledge that made the prospect of
enemy victory almost too much to bear

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I must emphasise that these notes represent

Early Days

my own personal recollection of living on the

My principal memory of 1940 is one of FEAR:

Isle of Wight during World War II. If, therefore,

not that mixture of fear and excitement which

there are any inaccuracies in the recording of

produces a rush of adrenalin, but sickening,

major events, I apologise. Please forgive me

gut-wrenching dread. Dread of what we would

and accept that, having been stored in the

be facing in the event of invasion, which at

darkest corners of my mind for clos e on seventy

that time seemed imminent. This was because

years, these memories may have become just a

my father had volunteered for the Home Guard

little dusty.

Auxiliary Unit, and was aware of the plans