大象传媒

Continued from a7190561

There were hosepipes and water everywhere .The firemen looked tired and worn
out. People were making them tea. They were still spraying water on what was
left of the garage. The A.R.P came round to tell us the army had made the bombs
safe. There were clothes and bits of furniture spread all over our two front rooms.
We sat in the kitchen and had our breakfast. Dad went and moved the van to No.3
for Beatie and her family to sort their home out.

The air-raid sirens went again in the evening. Mum and I slept on a mattress
under the stairs. Dad and Ted slept on mattresses in the passage with buckets of
water close by. This went on for a few nights with the sirens going as soon as
dusk came Beatie's husband came over to say her and her family were going to
put mattresses on the floor in the two basement rooms of No.3 and suggested we
do the same. Mum said by rights one of the rooms belonged to the couple who
had rented the downstairs flat after our old neighbours had gone. They were a
young couple with a baby, but the husband was called up and the wife and baby
i, had gone to live with her mother. They had left their address with mum so she
said she would write and tell them what was happening also someone should look
at the flat as a lot of water had leaked from the hoses that had been through there'
We moved back across the road to sleep at night.

A few nights later we all woke suddenly. The house seemed to jump up and come
down again. Something had happened close by. We could hear a great rumbling
sound and glass smashing. After a while someone went to look. Although our
house was No.2 it was not the first house in the road. There were two houses la
and I a first. They were two three-story houses that had been made into six flats.
Now they had completely gone and were just a big heap of rubble. Nobody was
sleeping there that night as they had all gone to a shelter.

When it was light we all had a look at what damage had been done. The windows
of all the houses nearby had broken. A man whose home had been in Zawas just
staring at what had been his home. The bomb must have landed right in the middle
of the two houses as the floors were all hanging towards the centre. The odd thing
was that a piano that had been in one of the middle flats was still standing there as
though glued to the wall. There was still a photo on the top yet there was nothing
under the front feet. We just thought that any minute it would come tumbling
down.
We went into our house dreading what we would find. There was a strong smell
of soot. Every room had a fireplace in it. in the kitchen was a cooking range. The
soot had been dislodged from every chimney and was now in the grate and over
the floor. The marble fireplace in the back living room had moved about six
inches forward but still standing upright. The ceilings in all four bedrooms had
great holes in them. The whole house was covered in dust. Every window in the
house had gone.

We did not have a vacuum cleaner in those days so we started to shovel up the
soot. One of the sisters and a minister from the East End Mission came round and
they told us to wait as they had a machine that would help. They came back with
what looked like a dustbin with a hose on it. We spent the day sucking up all the
mess.

Out in the street men were shoveling up the bricks and debris. The piano was still
standing up against the wall. Neighbours were coming along to look at it. The
workmen said they were going to try and get it down. I don't know how they
managed it but they did it. It was standing in the road and they sat playing it.
We knew who it belonged to so they put it in our front room until the owner came
to collect it. The road was cleared but all the bricks and rubble stayed there until
after the war.

My brother and dad took the vacuum back to the mission. We knew all the people
there as we had all belonged to different clubs and attended the church.
Incendiary bombs had dropped on it at the beginning of the blitz. The church
along with the balcony and organ had all been burnt and was open to the sky. The
flats where the ministers lived and various offices surrounding the church were
still usable also the hall underneath was still in use along with many small rooms.
These were being used as air-raid shelters. Many members of the church were
living on their own so were glad to be with others during the raids. All these
people were sleeping on either real bedsteads or camp beds. They asked us if we
would like to join them. Dad came back and we had a conference with the Farrow
family. It was agreed we should all sleep round at the mission. Dad went to his
place of work and asked if he could bring his van home. We piled all the
bedsteads and bedding in and used two of the rooms in the basement of the
mission as our shelter.

The evenings and nights did not seem so bad now that a lot of us were together.
As soon as it was dusk we all made our way to the mission before the sirens went.
We all had something to occupy us. Mum and dad were making a ready-cut rug,
others were knitting or doing embroidery. I always took a book with me or found
someone to play draughts or ludo with. We had parties if there was something to
celebrate. Food was rationed which meant everybody would try to contribute
something towards a party. On one occasion my mother said she would make
some individual trifles. We went round to make all the tables ready in the
afternoon. The sirens sounded earlier than we expected. We picked up the trays
with the trifles on and started to run. The guns were firing and searchlights were
lighting up the sky. We could see the German planes caught in the lights. A
policeman told us to take cover. We told him we were nearly there. He grabbed
one of trays and ran with us to the shelter. Then he stood laughing when we told
him what we were carrying.

Dad drove a van for a wine firm. Sometimes if he had a load to deliver out of
London he would pick me up and take me for the ride. On one occasion he was
going out to Essex. When he arrived the company queried the delivery and were
about an hour on the phone sorting it out which made us late back to Wapping
where the van was garaged for the night. By the time we started for home the
sirens had already gone. Bombs were dropping and buildings were alight. We ran
towards home as fast as we could. At one point warehouses on either side of us
were blazing away and the fire was going right across the gantries connecting the
warehouses across the road. I don't think I have ever run so fast in my life. Mum
was waiting on the doorstep, terribly worried for us. We all raced round to the
Mission for safety.

The East End Mission was having a lot of clothes, furniture and various other
things sent to them. One of the sisters asked my mum if she would help during the
day to sort all these things out. It was agreed that she would if I could be with her.
We untied all the parcels and sacks that came in daily. I had the job of putting all
the shoes and socks in order of size and whether they were men's women's or
children's. Lots of books were being sent in so I found loads to read.
When people were bombed out they would come in and often they had only what
they had on their backs so they were able to go away with changes of clothes.
One day a couple came in that I knew. They were the parents of one of my friends
from Geere House School. Their house had been hit by a bomb during the night
and all they had was what they were wearing. They were surprised to see me and
started to talk to me about the school at Ascot. My mum who had been getting
increasingly worried about me not having any education as well as sleeping down
the shelter at night said she wished I could go there. They said they would be
visiting their daughter at the week-end and would I like to go and see what it was
like.

My mother and I joined them for the journey to Ascot. It was nice to see my
friends from the school; also the two teachers .Geere House was only a small
school with two classes. All the children were there because they had either had
T.B at some time or a member of their family had. Miss O'Brian the Head-teacher
asked me if I would like to join them. I said I would, so she offered to 'phone the
education offices and the health offices at35/37 Stepney Green (our school lay
behind these two building). They would give us the necessary paper work, which I
should bring to her with my clothes. So off I went to Daneswood, South Ascot,
Berkshire.

When Geere House School went to Ascot at the beginning of the war the children
were billeted around the village of South Ascot. The children met each day in a
drill hall for lessons. After a few weeks the teachers had found a large house called
'Daneswood' with a lot of ground around it. I've no idea how it came about but
the L.C.C took it over and the school moved in.

When I arrived in the spring of 1941 the school had a number of staff. Besides the
two teachers Miss O'Brian and Miss Jacka there was Mrs Lewis the cook, her
sister-in-law Miss Lewis (known to us as Auntie Lew) who worked in the kitchen
but also helped with the small children such as getting them up and dressed in the
morning and bathing them. There were also two maids Beryl and Jane. Then
there was the gardener and his assistant. The only tasks the children had were
making the beds and tidying around our own bed. We also laid the tables for our
meals and collected the plates and put them in the pantry ready for washing.
I had not been at 'Daneswood' long before the gardener's assistant was called up
for military service. This did not affect us. I suppose the gardener took on more
work. Then the gardener received his calling up papers. Miss Jacka started
looking after the kitchen garden. Miss O'Brian looked after the rose garden. Each
day a few of us were picked out to help one of them. Beryl did all sorts of jobs in
the house Some of us older girls were often picked to give her a hand at times.
One day Beryl told us she was getting married . Her boyfriend, an airman who
came to meet her from work some days was stationed some way off. Beryl was
going to live near where he was. Beryl asked some of us girls if we would like to
go to her house where she lived in the village to see her trousseau . She had some
lovely things amongst them some beautiful silk underwear that our two teachers
had given her. We all went round to the church to see her married. We missed her
a lot. Soon after this Jane joined the land army.

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