大象传媒

I was born in Brockett Hall, a stately home in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, in November 1939, because when the war started,all the pregnant mothers from London鈥檚 East End were sent up there to have their babies. So I am now known as a Brockett babe! I lived in the East End of London and we were caught up in the Blitz. Our house received the results of a bomb that fell along the street and was shored up for many years afterwards, maybe twenty years. I do remember very clearly was when I was 2 years old and had a throat and chest infection. I was in bed at home and about 2 o鈥� clock in the morning my father wrapped me up in blankets and carried me out down to the shelter which was in a drinks factory next door to our house. Many times we were backwards and forwards to that shelter. My grandparents used to live opposite us and we sometimes stayed there because of the state of our house after the bomb.

At the end of our road there was a main railway line to Hertfordshire. Late one night, when I was in bed, there was a very, very loud bang. I think I was about 4 at the time, and I said to my aunt, 鈥淲hat was that?鈥� She said, 鈥淥h, don鈥檛 bother about that. It鈥檚 only a train fallen over.鈥� So I went back to sleep! Then I was evacuated to Welwyn Garden City, near the famous shredded wheat factory which is still there, and lived there for nearly two and a half years but came back to London in the middle of the Blitz. Later on, towards the end of 1944, I was evacuated to Cardiff with my mother and my sister who was 6 years older than I was, and where I was educated, partially, for nearly 2 years. My father stayed in London because he was working there. We lived with my aunt and it was very crowded. But Welwyn Garden City was lovely, all countrified which was something new to me, being so young. I still go back there sometimes, and the house is still there although the same people no longer live in it. We came back to London in mid 1945 because my father was still working there. Because of the condition of the house, I suffered from frequent chest infections until I was a teenager, but I continued living in the same house in the East End for another 22 years.

I remember some of the food I enjoyed during the war. There was powdered egg which was great and very thick, milky Bird's Eye custard. When we went to school we were given cod liver oil every day - not the capsules but oil on a teaspoon - and malt to build up our muscles. We were also given half a pint of milk each at primary school. But I never saw a banana, and didn't even know what one was, until I was 7 years old when I saw one for the first time. My grandmother told me they were lovely so I thought I'd take a chance and try one - she was right!

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