Mr Hillyard was born in 1930 in Woolwich, an area south-east of London.
An only child, he lived with his parents in their family home which sat on the boundary between London and Kent.
At the beginning of the war the government evacuated children from London, but as the border ran through Mr Hillyard's garden he stayed put.
The council erected "Anderson shelters", named after their engineer - they were small and cheap and distributed by the government to people living in areas expected to be bombed.
A hole, about four feet, was dug in the yard and corrugated iron was arched over it.
An exit was on either side and the soil from the hole was piled over the top to give extra protection.
Government policy was that children would only attend school part-time. Children were split into two groups. Half attended school in the morning and half in the afternoon.
"The idea was if the school was bombed only half the kids would die," says Mr Hillyard.
Although the early part of the war was "pretty quiet" there was a lot of action near where he lived.
"They were dropping bombs all over the place."
German planes that did reach their targets would jettison bombs, to lighten the load, on their way back to Germany.
Mr Hillyard says for about four or five months, every night, the sky would be lit up by fire.
"They would come and drop bombs after dark, which would light up the sky and could be seen quite plainly from my house."
A bomb was dropped at the top of Mr Hillyard's road, about 400m from his house. It created a hole the width of the road and could have swallowed a double decker bus.
The force of the blast bowed a leadlight window in Mr Hillyard's front door.
The next lot of damage Mr Hillyard's home suffered happened while he was in the shelter with his parents.
Coming up from the shelter in the morning after the previous night's raid, they found a chunk of the bedroom ceiling, about 2m in diameter, on the floor.
The Hillyards grew most of their own food during the war years, like most other people - some even had pumpkins planted on top of the shelters.
Mr Hillyard says one day he heard a "tremendous racket". He went outside to see a Dornier 17, a German light air bomber aircraft, heading west and flying low at tree-top height.
"You could see the pilot and the gunner. I didn't wave at them."
The plane did a semi-circle then disappeared behind a clump of trees and did not come out the other side.
It had been shot down by 18 Home Guard, ending up about 8km from the Hillyards' home.
"As a kid I wasn't really frightened, I don't think. Some of the times were quite exciting really."
Mr Hillyard used to sit out in the garden with his next door neighbour, who was the same age, and watch the fighter planes fly overhead.
"We became experts at spotting the enemy."
In 1944, the Germans started sending the V1 "flying bombs", which were launched from the French coast.
They had a jet engine and were the world's first long range missile.
A flying bomb landed in the field behind Mr Hillyard's house and lifted his whole roof vertically up - it dropped back down again in a different place.
"My mother noticed plaster dropping down, and what was happening was the whole roof was sliding down off the walls of the house."
The council came and took the roof tiles off, realigned the rafters and rebuilt the roof.
Toward the end of the war, V2 rockets were launched. According to the Germans, the "V" meant vengeance.
The V2 travelled faster than sound so they could not be heard coming.
"After they exploded, you knew. The first thing you heard was a big bang and of course it was too late to do anything. They made a hell of a mess too."
The last V2 fell about 10km south from his house.
"They couldn't aim that well with them really - they just aimed them to where they thought the town was and it was luck if it hit."
When the war ended on May 8, 1945, Mr Hillyard was "overjoyed". He was 14 and a third of his life had been lived during war years.
"It's a big chunk out of your life when you're only that age."
Mr Hillyard emigrated to New Zealand in 1967 with his wife, Shirley, and daughter, Katherine.
The government ran a recruiting scheme for teachers and Mr Hillyard, a metal work teacher, was one of 12 to come to New Zealand by sea.
The family spent 11 years in Taumarunui and then moved down to Timaru, in 1978.
They stayed there until Mr Hillyard retired, in 1990, by which time he was head of the art department at a Catholic school.
Mr and Mrs Hillyard moved to Masterton 12 years ago to live closer to their daughter.
