大象传媒

AUNTS HELP OUT

We became tenants of a bare upstairs flat, and whilst my parents set about making it comfortable it was decided that I should stay with aunts. They took me in and mothered me, and as much as they loved me it must have been a shock for my spinster aunts to have a war frightened teenager sharing their home. They pushed their single beds together and I slept between a feather and a horsehair mattress.

My great aunt had disdain for the enemy and preferred to carry on as if nothing was out of the ordinary. If a raid came during the night she would not leave her bed, but sat upright knitting oiled socks for sailors or soft woollen vests for children in hospital. I did persuade her to cover the bed with a sheet incase the windows fell onto her.
'I've lived through the last war and nobody is going to chase me from my home now,' she stubbornly argued.
It was my other aunt who guided me down dark stairs, through her landlady's rooms, then out into the night to an Anderson shelter in the garden. I hated it. It was cold, damp, smelt of cats and was full of cigarette smoke. When the door was closed, I almost suffocated and felt that I stood a better chance of living back in the house. I tried to get in under the stairs, but this led to the coalhole and was filthy. Eventually a cage was fitted to go under a table that I crept into each night, and snug and warm I was content.

I must have become a nervous girl, for I didn't sleep well and came out in rashes. I remember wetting my bed and my day clothes were often smelly, yet I was never scolded. We spent the evening鈥檚 playing cards or singing hymns. A favourite radio programme was, 'Into battle,' and we whistled the signature tune and listened intently to the war story that accompanied it.
One funny incident brought us all into the street one morning. A barrage balloon had broken its moorings and was dancing like a floppy elephant over the rooftops. We were discussing where it would land, when a gust of wind lifted it up and it drifted out of sight. I followed its progress along many streets until it was shot down.

My mother called me home when the flat was habitable, and I was sad to leave my unreal world where I had been the centre of my aunt's lives. One aunt took me out on weekly treats to a cinema and fed me with sticky buns. Whenever an air raid notice was displayed on the screen, saying:
'AIR RAID NOW IN PROGRESS. PLEASE LEAVE THE CINEMA.'
We were often so engrossed in the film, that as soon as the notice disappeared we stayed to the end.

Despite air raids, the constant barrage and flashing from ack-ack guns, the fearful drone from aeroplanes heavy with bombs, I had been kept safe and cared for and I look back on this period with happiness.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.