大象传媒

I was 6 years old and an only child when war was declared and can remember the day very well. As children the next day at school was a mixture of excitement and fear that all things were going to be much different.

I went to Hook Lane Junior School in Welling, Kent. I can recall brown paper being stuck on the windows of the classrooms to stop glass being splintered and flying into the room. Being told to get underneath our desks when an air raid was in progress. We had school shelters built later, which I think were reinforced concrete built half in and half above the ground, as soon as the air raid siren was heard, we all moved into the shelters and carried on with our lessons. We also played hockey on top of the shelter because it had a good flat surface.

Evacuation was the next thing that happened. I can't remember exactly when it first started, I think it was early 1940. My first excursion was down into Kent somewhere near Biggin Hill but I am sure it was only for a few weeks, and then back home to Welling.

It was later on in 1940 or early 1941 that we were then evacuated as an entire school. This was when the "Blitz" had started and the air raids were in full strength. We were only going to school two or three days a week and having lessons in different peoples houses because the school was damaged and closed for repairs or safety reasons. I can remember quite vividly standing outside Welling railway station and being "labelled up". A brown cardboard label was tied into our buttonholes with our name and address written on, and a square box with a gas mask in it round our necks.

My instructions from my mother were "Stay together with Alan", he was the boy next door and was, I think, two years older than me. We were being sent to Cornwall to a little village called Merrymeet near Liskeard. I don't think any of us had any idea where it was or how far away it was. We were probably taken by bus from Liskeard station to the village school and then all stood there while we were picked out by our new 'foster parents'. "I have to go with him or her" was the common call and we grabbed each other to strengthen our claim. We did stay together and walked to a very small cottage next to the church.

Mr & Mrs Hake was their name and they had a son at home. He was excused joining the services because of his job on the land, and the old man was too old. He worked in a local quarry. The cottage had no electricity, no running water, no gas, so no bathroom or toilet in the house. The water was collected by bucket from the village pump and brought home. The toilet was a little wooden shed right at the far end of the garden. The frightening thing was that being next door to the church we were also next door to the graveyard. Going to the toilet at night was something to avoid if possible. All lighting was by oil lamp and candles.

I don't know how many of us there were in the village but it must have doubled the population of the school. There was not enough room for all the children in such a small building and we used to go only in the mornings or afternoons. It was all good fun to us, half day school and playing the other half of the time in fields and barns that were all new territories.

We only stayed in the cottage for a short while and then we were moved out. I can remember being happy to move because the people were very strict and it was not a happy house. We went out of the village about a mile and half away to a farm. It was very different. There was the farmer and his wife, Mr & Mrs Baynes, two daughters Mary and Joan and a son Len. They were all adults and lovely people and there were then three evacuees. Alan, myself and an older girl Florrie Whitfield. A total of eight in the house and it was a very happy home. We each had definite jobs to do everyday before we walked to school and when we got home. I had to clean all the boots and shoes and help feed the chickens. It was quite a large farm and at that time there was no tractor, and all the work was done by cart horse. There were five of them and they were wonderful animals. Ploughing, hay making and corn harvesting all by horse. It can only be seen in pictures now.

Try to imagine now getting all the water from a pump in the scullery. All water had to be boiled in kettles and saucepans or a boiler that was going all the time with a wood fire. A bath once a week in a tin bath in the scullery. Oil lighting and candles and cooking on a great big range oven.

Although the living was very hard it was softened by the marvellous food. Mrs Baynes was a tremendous cook in the old country tradition. I went to school everyday with a real Cornish pasty, and the meals on the farm were large and generous. Pies, puddings, all home grown vegetables, chickens and home killed bacon and pork. No rationing as there was at home. One of my favourites was runner beans with and egg and cream on for supper.

I stayed at the farm for about a year to year & half. My mother and father came down to visit me because my father was on leave from the army. He was a gun fitter on anti-aircraft heavy ack ack around the country. When they went back home to Welling I went with them because the heavy Blitz had finished and the schools were operating full time, although some lessons were interrupted by air raids and everyone moved to the shelters. Most of my old friends had returned as well and the war became more exciting for us. After an air raid we would all be collecting pieces of shrapnel from exploded bombs and comparing our prizes.

One of the worst parts was having to go down the air raid shelter in the garden at night when there was a raid going on. The shelters were always cold and damp and seemed very small. I used to try and talk my mother into laying under the stairs in the house, which we did at times but when the bombs were falling quite near we both got frightened and ran to the shelter.

The next big threat came with the VI (Doodlebugs) the flying bomb. I can recall the first night that they started, we were in the street looking up at the sky and the search lights were picking them out. They looked to me like an aeroplane with a flame coming from the rear, and the plane was on fire. "We are shooting a lot down tonight mum" I cried not realising that they were designed to crash and blow up. They really were scary because you could see and hear them, and when the engine stopped, down they came and blew everything near it to pieces. We had one of them a few doors up from us and it was an experience I don't want again. Luckily nobody was killed that night we were all in the shelters. The V2 rockets came after that. They gave no warning at all, there was not time to be scared.

The big news of course around that time was "D Day". It was wonderful for us to see the allies hitting back at Hitler and the air raids became fewer and fewer.

There was no television in those days everybody listened to the radio. I can remember a large crowd standing outside the radio shop on Welling corner all cheering at the news of the invasion, everybody went to school cheering.

It took another year to happen but eventually it did and the following May the war in Europe was over, V E Day. That evening my mother took me up to the top of Shooters Hill to look down over London and see all the lights shining after 6 years of blackout.

I was going to Dartford Grammar School by then, and it became a more serious business, a couple of months later and the war in Japan was won. My father came home from the army and masters who had been away were returning to the school. They wore cap & gown in those days.

On reflection I was extremely lucky during the war. All my family survived the bombing at home and those away in the forces came back safely.

I think of all the people I know who suffered the most was my mother. She had all the worry and no escape, and I don't think I really thanked her. Thanks Mum.

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