Teddy Bears and Doodlebugs

While battles were being fought around the world, on the Home Front ordinary people were trying to come to terms with the change World War II brought to their lives. For civilians, the war was an epic struggle in trying to go about their daily business. For Jacqueline Hollings and her younger sister and brother growing up in Colindale, a part of Hendon in London, the war brought changes and hardships that they could never have imagined.

Having lived a carefree pre-war existence, eight-year-old Jacqueline and her family soon faced nightly bombing raids, disruption to school life, food rationing and freezing winters with short supplies of fuel and power. They lived through the dark days of the Blitz, while hearing the thuds of air-raids nearby as local shops and houses were flattened by bombs. Despite the hardships, they remained stoical and resilient, anxious to ?do their bit? for the war effort. There was a spirit of camaraderie that appears in wartime, and a staunch belief that the war would eventually be won.

Seventy years on and Jacqueline returns to her childhood in Colindale through her vivid memories of the war. In doing so she paints a picture of a little girl with a gift for music growing up against the bewildering backdrop of wartime Britain. Her heartwarming story is one of survival, family love and strength and ultimately ?coming through?.