´óÏó´«Ã½

Margaret Brooks

I attended Copthall County School in Mill Hill. In 1944 during the doodlebug raids I cycled to school with my friend Audrey. If we heard a doodlebug approaching we had to decide whether we were past the half way mark to school. If so, we went on and went in the shelters, if not – we could return home until the raid was over. Then start out again for school. At home we had a Morrison shelter in the dining room which we sheltered in when there was a raid.

During the raids we spent a lot of time in the school shelters and had to take our examinations in the shelter. The school adopted a merchant ship and we spent a lot of our time knitting gloves, seaboot stockings and balaclavas helmets. One morning in assembly, we were told our ship had been sunk and this really brought the war home to us.

During my 4th year at school the form I was in acted out Quality Street by J M Barrie. It is set in Regency time and our form mistress asked if anyone had striped curtains we could use on the set. My friend said her mother had a set of net curtains which we could use but these were plain white and we wanted blue and white. I had a sudden thought that we could dye bandages blue and our back yard become festooned with yards and yards of blue dyed bandages! The form then had to stitch the stripes on to the curtains.

Going home by Underground at any time all the platforms at deep stations had wooden bunks which were used by people who wanted to shelter underground. There were parties and entertainment and life seemed to carry on as normal in the tunnels!

I remember my mother making a mock chocolate filling for cakes which was made from mashed potatoes and cocoa powder. It tasted good.

For a Sunday School celebration, we needed a large cake and everyone connected with the Sunday School brought small contributions of fruit and butter and sugar etc. My mother made the cake for the party.

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