大象传媒

When war broke out in 1939 I was perhaps later than the general exodus into the countryside. There was a period of time called the 鈥榩honey war鈥� when nothing much happened, except there was in progress cautious preparations in the costal district of Southend-on-Sea where I lived at the time.

Almost overnight it had become a military area. Many shops were closed and houses were taken over by military personnel. We had a drapers shop at this time which had to be closed due to lack of trade, of course. Southend became a dead town. The shop opposite us was taken over by the ARP (Air Raid Precaution).It was sand-bagged up and through a small door there buzzed in and out, the newly enrolled Air Raid Wardens in their navy battledress, white tin helmets, and a gas mask.

Everybody in the town was issued with a gas mask which was housed in a square cardboard box. There was at the time an issue of gas armlets made of special material which turned green if there was a gas attack! My mother was employed by the local council to make hundreds of these armlets. This is how I remember this. Barbed wire was hastily placed on the beaches where deck chairs used to be.

There was a mass evacuation of school children from Westcliff to Derbyshire, but I did not go on this one. Instead, my mother opted to move inland to be with her family who lived in Hanwell, West London. This proved too be 鈥榦ut of the frying pan into the fire鈥�. After a few weeks the blitz began in earnest and at the height of the saturation bombing of the London docks and the city itself. Our house in the suburbs was one of the many that fell victim too. We had by that time made nightly descents to the Anderson air-raid shelter in the garden.

One of the members of my family was my cousin Jean who was only a few months older than me. We were sent down to the shelter earlier than the adults. It was quite an adventure at first, and the only occurrence that scared us up to that time were very large spiders who joyfully sought the haven of the shelter too!

One night we heard the ominous roar of falling masonry, glass and the crumble of tiles crashing from the roofs. The house behind us has received a direct hit and many of the houses around had suffered damage including our own. We had experienced the eerie sensation of the shelter lifting up out of the ground and thumping down again with a shower of earth falling almost exactly back into place.

The next morning we looked out at the devastation. Our house was not too bad but was minus a lot of tiles and every window was blown out. An army of ARP wardens came along and boarded up our windows and put tarpaulin on the roof. One warden knocked on our door and said 鈥淎ny children here?鈥� He explained that they must be evacuated immediately as there may be an unexploded bomb in the next road.

As it happened, my Aunt has seen in the local newspaper that evacuees were required in Rickmansworth. As the situation had obviously worsened, it was compulsory by then for every house to accommodate evacuees, if they had not already done so, after the main stream of children had arrived earlier. After a telephone call, my cousin and I were accepted by a young couple who lived in Meadow Way, Rickmansworth. When we arrived at the house with our bags hastily packed, we were greeted by Leonard and Audrey Smith and also his mother and father who were staying with them.

It was a pleasant house, newly built and designed by the owner himself. He also was designing and making the furniture. I don鈥檛 know if this was his job or his hobby! I do recall, though that he worked for the 大象传媒.

The school, where we were to be located, was in Chorley Wood, which was situated about one and a half miles away. It was a terrible winter and the deep snow persisted. My poor cousin suffered badly from chilblains due to the trek we had to make each day I guess.I suffered from sheer fear of going to a school that I didn鈥檛 like. My teacher was a dragon who scared me so much I played truant within a week of going there! The school was very overcrowded with the influx of the evacuees and the normal intake of children who lived there anyway. A strict discipline had to be maintained. The headmaster, a tubby man with a clipped sergeant major moustache, used to come onto the classroom every day reminding us that he could administer punishment with this big thick stick for the boys and a wispy one for the girls. This stung you hands as I had the misfortune to be on the receiving end one morning for talking in assembly!

I did settle down in an uneasy fashion, until one day my new class teacher told us in an ominous voice 鈥淔or homework you must learn the fourteen times table and each one of you must recite it tomorrow morning鈥�. I hadn鈥檛 got that far with by tables and maths was not my strong point anyway. I was just terrified and refused to go to school the next day. This resulted in the Headmaster and the Headmistress calling at my house to sort the problem out and they did. I was moved to another class and got on very well after that.

Life in our new home was very good. Our foster mother and father took us out a lot and sometimes in their caravan. The granny taught me to knit and she persuaded me to knit a scarf for the Air Force. As knitting was not my strong point either, to say the least, the finished result was a peculiar shape indeed length and widthways!. Granny hastily packed it up and sent it off. I hope it kept some poor unfortunate airman warm anyway!

When it came for us to go home for Christmas, Mr and Mrs Smith took us out into the woods and they chopped down a small Christmas tree for us. As we never had a real tree before this was really wonderful. When the Christmas holidays were over and the immediate danger had subsided, our school which had suffered bomb damage had been repaired. Many children who had returned home decided they didn鈥檛 want to go back to their place of evacuation. The feeling was mutual that we stayed at home after agreement with both our parents and foster parents.

This four months away from home was an experience not to be forgotten. I often wondered about our foster parents, but no contact was ever made. A pity really.

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