大象传媒

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My sister and I were in the Odeon Cinema at Goose Green, East Dulwich when the siren went. Half the cinema emptied, including my sister and I because we wanted to get back home to our mother because she was on her own. While running up East Dulwich Grove, the warden was shouting from the brick air raid shelter for us to come inside. We said no, because we wanted to get home to our mother. As we ran, we heard the noise of an airplane and looked back and there was this plane diving straight at us. We threw ourselves over a coping into a garden to get out of the way. We heard the sound of a machine gun, and then the airplane swooped back up again and flew off. When we got up and saw the pavement where we were running, there were bullets all over the pavement. The street was deserted apart from us because they were all in the air raid shelter so the pilot was obviously shooting at us, two young girls running home.

Two years later I was working at a factory in Streatham Hill, South East London, in the 鈥淩adium Room鈥� illuminating compass and gun dials for the war effort. The girls working there were aged between 16 and 20, some of whom were pregnant. We used to sing all the time to alleviate boredom. We worked behind half inch glass panels about 12鈥漻10鈥� and wore white overalls, head scarves, gauze masks and rubber aprons. The radium was like a cream in a dish and we worked with a pen to illuminate the dials. On leaving the Radium Room we had to scrub our hands to try to get the radium off. We had to put our hands under a ultra-violet lamp to check if they were clear of radium (which they never were) On one occasion I decided to put my mask under the ultra-violet lamp and low and behold there was a very large area of radium right where my mouth would have been. So I decided then and there I would not wear a mask anymore, I would take a chance. At might, in the blackout, I used to be lit up like a Christmas tree, with all the fluorescence over my hairline, neck, throat and hands.

Several years later I started to be very ill. My doctors could not find what was wrong with me and this went on for 20 years. I did not have any power in my muscles. I could open a draw but could not close it 鈥� I could not lift anything. Eventually after seeking a private doctor鈥檚 opinion I went into hospital and had an operation to remove a growth from my throat. Had I not had the operation at that time it would have been a very different story and I would not be here now. I often wonder if this could have been caused by my working with radium as I did hear from one of the other girls who worked with me there, that the girls were all taken away to the country as they we so very ill

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