大象传媒

EDNA O`SHEA

I was evacuated at a crucial moment in my schooling: I was ten so I never had a chance to take the eleven plus and eventually left school at fouteen. When I went back to Portsmouth after eight months away my school, Portsdown Junior, was closed, first for occupation by American forces and later by British forces. I was batted from school to school and sometimes had to go out on my own to find a place. Some of the teachers were less than welcoming: perhaps they were just overrun with children displaced from their own schools. No one seemed to check that children were going to school. At one time I went to a school which consisted of wooden huts; it was a long way from home so I had to run as fast as I could to get home for lunch and then back again for afternoon lessons. Then I went to Court Lane school where the teachers certainly didn`t want me. It was a hopscotch of an education. Eventually, probably sometime in 194 Portsdown school re-opened - and that was the happiest day of my life.
But all this did one thing for me: I had been a very sheltered, shy girl but having to search out my own education made me much stronger.

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