大象传媒

LONDON IS BOMBED

During daylight air-raids people would rush out to see the `dog fights` between Hurricanes, Spitfires and enemy planes, we all cheered them on, and this was known as the鈥� Battle of Britain鈥�.
My mother worked in London鈥檚 West End and on her way home after a particularly heavy raid she saw not only houses, but whole rows of houses bombed. This was towards the end of 1940 and she said we must get our of London.
Within a few hours we had left. Our canary, Joey, was left with a neighbour, and Mum, Dad, Tiny and I set off for my mother鈥檚 sister Winnie. My aunt, her husband and five children had been evacuated from Fulham to a small terraced house near the Church at Bray. Without warning, none of us had telephones, we descended upon them. You can imagine the chaos, but better than the bombs.
Tiny was taken to a lady with a large house and garden who looked after people鈥檚 pets as her war effort, we just hoped Tiny would settle happily with her.
My mother set off to find rooms 鈥渢o let鈥�, without success.
The local school at Braywick could not take me, as they were full. I was only 13 years of age but it was decided that I should apply for a job as housemaid, which meant living in, as this would help with the congestion at my aunts.
I was eagerly accepted. The house was beautiful with lawns going down to the river Thames, it belonged to a very wealthy man whom I met as I was cleaning his bathroom. He had a beautiful shaving brush with an amber handle with a tiny nude lady set inside. What funny things we remember!
It was a shock to get up at 6am every morning but this was my introduction {never to be repeated} to domestic service. Firstly the fire grates had to be cleaned and set for the day, then the living rooms had to be dusted and tidied, all before breakfast. The afternoon was free and I often went cycling with the parlour maid. There was more work after that and I used to get very tired.
In the drawing room were two grand pianos, one belonged to Ernest Lough, he recorded 鈥淥h for the Wings of a Dove鈥� as a boy soprano, and his piano was evacuated from London. In the evenings I sat at the top of the stairs and listened to the beautiful music being played.
Eventually, my domestic service days came to an end and I was able to go to school, also my mother managed to find two rooms for us to move into.
Dad and I returned to London to collect Joey and as many essentials as we could carry. We arrived back at Maidenhead Station, in the pitch dark, and put everything on to our bikes or strapped to our backs and set off to our new home at Holyport. I had Joey鈥檚 cage hanging from my handlebars and every time I pushed the pedal I knocked the cage with my foot. We were nearly home when the bottom of the cage fell off and poor Joey was nowhere to be seen. My father, who had quite a temper, was so cross that he threw the cage into someone鈥檚 garden and I cried for the rest of the journey home.

Life at Holyport was not very happy. Our landlady was an unpleasant woman who was scared of thunderstorms and said "give me an air raid any day.鈥� She had never experienced an air raid so this did not go down well after our nights during the London blitz. My poor mother was supposed to have use of her kitchen but this proved impossible, so she bought a tin oven, which fitted over an oil stove. How on earth she managed to produce a roast joint and potatoes in this contraption I don鈥檛 know, but she did.
The local people resented Londoners coming to their area; you would think we were their enemy! School was no better, it had two classes and the standard was far below that of London schools. I was made to feel most unwelcome. We had questions like "what do you call people who run away from danger"? The whole class erupted with "cowards miss". This, of course, was for my benefit, but I had the last laugh because I was top of the school when I happily left at fourteen years old.

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