大象传媒

I was just a few weeks old when war broke out but my Mother and I were still evacuated. It isn't often mentioned today but Mothers with babies were also evacuated from London to the country. I remember my Mother telling me how after hours of travelling to Clevedon in Somerset by steam train she and all the other mothers and babies were very tired and hungry. On arrival they were taken to the church hall where they were expecting to meet their hosts. However there had been an awful mix up in the arrangements and the people waiting were expecting children not mothers and babies. In most cases the expected children were to share a bedroom with their own children so where able to accomodate mothers with young babies. An urgent search for residents with spare rooms prepared to take them was undertaken while the Mums just sat and waited, they had to hold the babies all this time as there was nowhere to lay them down and the babies became very hot and grumpy. Feeding and nappy changing was also very difficult. Separated from my Dad and her parents with her first baby in a strange place with no where to go my mother said she had never felt so alone in and miserable in her entire life. After many hours the generous residents of Clevedon where able to take in all the exhausted evacuees. A few weeks later my Mother was so homesick she, like many others, returned to London to take their chances.
Later in the war we moved to then rural Essex to escape the bombing and our bungalow was hit by a piece of flying bomb. I woke up screaming in the middle of the night buried under the ceiling plaster and roof tiles. I can quite clearly remember seeing the stars through the hole in the roof, I was about 4 then and it was the only time I ever remember being really afraid by the war, up until then going to shelters, watching dog fights in the sky and looking at newly bombed out houses were part of my life and as I had never known anything else I just accepted it.

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