D-DAY MEMORIES: PAT Day, who lives in Devizes, was just nine when she and her family moved to Hayling Island in Hampshire as her father, a Royal Navy Petty Officer, was preparing for the D-Day landings.

It was a dream compared to the air raids and blitz conditions she had had to put up with in London. Although the Luftwaffe was a spent force, the metropolis had become a target for Hitler's terror weapons, the V1 and V2 rockets.

Mrs Day remembers: "The flying bombs had started falling on London, and we were spending nearly all day and night in our air raid shelter. While home on leave my father was shocked to see how nervous my mother, brother and I were because of the air raids."

Her father found lodgings for them on Hayling Island and summer 1944 became a time of magic memories for Mrs Day, despite the fact that men were preparing for the most desperate operation to end Hitler's domination of the European continent.

Her days were filled with playing in the open air and sun, but there was a war on and you had to keep your wits about you.

She said: "As the island was a sensitive, restricted area, we had to carry our identity cards at all times, and were asked to show them quite often. Once, as we were strangers there, a local policeman asked us for identification, which my mother could not supply.

"So she had to pay a fine of seven shillings and sixpence, but learned her lesson and always carried our ID cards after that incident."

Mrs Day's father, Thomas Moll, was undergoing some very odd experiences as the commander of a landing craft. He was ordered to go to certain beaches, land and take samples of the sand, which he brought back for analysis.

Mrs Day said: "One night he was ordered to further than usual. But he got his men to land and take their samples. It was only when he got back to Hayling Island he was told he had just been to Normandy."

There was an army camp on the island as well as the naval base and Mrs Day's brother Danny , 11 months younger than her, was able to go swimming in the swimming pool at the camp with other boys. Mrs Day said: "I was forbidden by my mother and she warned me not to get friendly with the soldiers, who frequented the beaches we played on.

"The young soldiers were very lonely, and greatly outnumbered the women on the island. Some of these young soldiers used to chat to me and ask me if I had any older sisters, or if my mother was pretty.

"I would answer that my mother had told me not to be too friendly with them. One young soldier was very persistent in talking to me, and kept asking me my Christian name, which I refused to give.

"He eventually found out when my brother called me by name, as we were playing on the beach. A few days later this soldier proudly showed me a belt he had embroidered with my name on it.

"Although only a child at the time, I have never forgotten that young soldier. He would tease me because I was shy, and I would blush when he said he'd come back and marry me when I was older.

"Another person I well remember was a young woman who loved the cinema, who copied the hairstyles of the film stars. In my childish way I thought her very rude, as she used to lift up her skirt and show her legs and panties whenever a lorryload of servicemen drove past. Obviously the servicemen would wolf-whistle their appreciation of her display."

Mrs Day's mother Daisy is now 91 and a resident at Mayfield nursing home in Devizes. She helped Mrs Day with her recollections of the time, although Mrs Day needs little in the way of reminding.

She said: "It is like looking at a film. I just close my eyes and it is all there in front of me. It was a magical time for me, although it was a matter of life and death to so many people."

See this week's 4 page 60th Anniversary of D-Day special in the Gazette & Herald