大象传媒

In 1941 during one particularly bad night of the Blitz, my parents and I had to walk from Lambeth to Charing Cross Station - Waterloo Station being closed by fire - to catch a train to Hangar Lane, the nearest station to our home. There were fires everywhere and we saw many casualties, including the corpses of firemen. When we got to Hangar Lane the sky above central London was bright red; an amazing and horrifying sight. I was seven years old then.

After this experience, my parents decided I should be evacuated and a place was found for me with the Woodbridge family in Furze Platt, near Maidenhead. They were lovely people, the parents had three children; two boys, Philip and Leslie, both in the RAF and one daughter, Pauline. I could not have been better looked after if I had been their own child. I stayed with them for, I think, about eighteen months. During that time I attended a local school and made friends with several of the local children. I well remember being put to work with other youngsters helping with the potato harvesting, climbing trees and playing games on the Thicket and catching sticklebacks with a bent pin in a pond at Pinkneys Green. I cannot remember being miserable, I suppose I must have been homesick but I don't recall that.

When the air raids became fewer I returned home to my mother, my father being away in the army.

I stayed the Woodbridges in 1944 and 1945 during summer holidays and renewed my friendships. In later years I visited Mrs Woodbridge several times, she was like a special auntie to me.

The elder son, Philip, was shot down and killed on a bombing raid over Germany; I believe in 1944.

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