My mother, Olivette, was a year old when the Second World War began in 1939 and seven when it ended in 1945.

In a recent conversation, she told me about the air raid siren that she would hear in Rockland, Ontario, from her home in Clarence Creek, about 10 kilometres away as the crow flies. She asked her mother, Malvina, what she was supposed to do when she heard the siren. Malvina told her that she was to take shelter.

The first time Olivette heard the air raid siren, she was playing outside, so she went into her house.

— "What are you doing in here?" her mother asked.

— "The air raid siren is going off, so I came in, like you told me to."

— "Oh, don't pay attention to that. Get outside."

A Government of Canada pamphlet issued by the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Organization during the Second World War advised Canadians to be prepared for the possibility of an enemy air attack on Canadian soil, no matter how remote that possibility, by ensuring that their homes offered the maximum protection against bombs. Make Your Home Your Aid Raid Shelter acknowledged that "the likelihood of frequent or prolonged large scale raids by enemy aircraft on Canada appears to be extremely remote"; however, it went on to say: "Nevertheless, the unexpected can happen—as the attack on Pearl Harbour so forcefully demonstrated—and we, in Canada, cannot risk being unprepared."

I will do more research to understand how air sirens were used in Canadian communities during the Second World War, but I thought my mom's recollection of the practice drills was a charming story.