大象传媒

This is to add to my article A6001570.I have been unable to get back to my original contribution.

It could be dinner time before the all clear went and we could have lessons in the classrooms. Most of the time in the shelters we were knitting for the forces and singing. For a period of time we were not allowed to go to schol at all. During that time I remember going to a lady's house where I learnt to tell the time. Most of the other children were evacuated during the blitz but not us. Our father refused to let us go. Again when all the evauees were back home and the doodle bugs started the children were evacuated to Beccles. But not us. Since that time, it seems to me that my father was against evacuation to anywhere because my second eldest sister went to Dagenham Girls Technical College and an opportunity to evacuate pupils and their siblings to USA was possible for us. My mother was sewing labels into clothes and blankets ready for us to go bit because ships were being torpedoed in the Atlantic and some of these were full of evacuees my father must have changed his mind, and so we stayed at home.
We saw many a doodle bug flying over with flames coming out of the tail end. As long as theengine was still going and it passed the house we knew we were sa\fe but, if the engine stopped before it reached our area there was the silent few seconds before the thing came down and exploded. Especially at night all you could do was wait - probabley under the table - until the explosion. During this period we were all sleeping in the living room. My father was away in the airforce on a camp at Nuthampstead. My mother had all the responsibility of us children which is something young children do not realise until much later in life. My father was home on leave though, when a V2 rocked the house. It had fallen on the Police Station on Collier Row Road, very near to our school on Havering Road, Romford. Another friend Pauline Wilson was killed.

All through the war and for years later the 'make do and mend' ethos was instilled in us. Anything knitted which could be unpicked and reknitted wasn't wasted. Off cuts from dressmaking were pieced together to make whole garments. Some of my mother's clothes were remade into coats and dresses for us. Even when I was about 14 I was wearing a coat dzating back to well before the war. I was thrilled when I got a new coat to replace the old fashioned one when I was 15. Clothing coupons were something we had plenty of. Being short of cash, these could be sold to others obviously better off than us.If children were outgrowing clothes at a pace they were issued with extra clothing coupons. We were measured for height and foot size. It must have been on a regular basis or it was related to age, but however the system worked we were eligible for exra coupons.

I remember queueing for about three hours to get one orange on a green ration book. My mother was able to exchange tea for the orange juice only available to under fives or expectant mothers. I thought this concentrated orange juice was wonderful on the rare occasions we got it. The years of rationing were eventually eased as the post war years went by. and food became more available. It eventually ended in 1954

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