大象传媒

Sister Oona is wearing a blue dress with big white flowers and a dark blue suit jacket. She carries a walking stick and two plastic bags - one blue, one white. She has very white curls and a kind, smiling face. She wears a chain with a cross with the engraved letters: FCJ.

We sit around her as she happily describes her experiences in the war. She is a nun. She was a nun during the war. She bursts out with short happy laughs as she talks. She talks about everything from evacuation to the war in Iraq. She seems to deeply sympathise with the victims of war in Iraq.

We begin to talk about evacuation. She describes what went on. Children were taken from London into the countryside. She looks horrified as she describes how those who would take the children would pick and choose particular children, as if buying slaves from an auction. Sometimes, children who looked 'awkward' would be left behind. When the war ended, some parents wouldn't come to claim their children. Or they had died during the war. Children would return to London and find whole open empty streets. Some children who were from the East end of London, which were mainly made of slums, would decide to stay in the countryside and not come back.

When asked how she felt after the war finished, Sister Oona gasps, "I was relieved".

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