大象传媒

I was fourteen, my sisters Mavis (12) and Pixie (8). On the morning of 14th September 1940 we walked down to the town to say goodbye to a kind woman who worked for my father and had known us since we were babies. We were running on our way home when the air raid sirens sounded. I could see the pilot in the plane which swooped down near the new canal that supplied water to North London. A warden shouted at us to get in the shelter 鈥渨e can鈥檛,鈥� I shouted as we fled off 鈥渨e鈥檙e going to America鈥�.
And we did!
With our parents we spent the noisy night of Battle of Britain Sunday in a hotel near Selfridges. The next morning we assembled with dozens of other children at Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, trying to be brave as we said goodbye and got on buses for the station. During the journey there were numerous air-raid warnings. Am I right in remembering 18?
We had to pull the blinds down in case there might be flying glass. When we arrived in Liverpool there was a heavy raid going on. We were hurried into a warehouse basement. When the all-clear went we went on our way to an evacuated open-air school for handicapped children. My youngest sister was terrified by the dreadful bombing that seemed to go on all night. However, there was no panic in the huge cellar where we were on camp beds row upon row.
No breakfast appeared until after 11.00am. When we left the building, it was virtually the only one still standing in the street. It was said that of the stick of bombs dropped the one that dropped in our kitchen didn鈥檛 explode.
We boarded the RMS Antonia and the convoy set off. I suffered sea sickness every day, all day. Our escorts, jolly scouts, did their best to entertain us on the deck. We were taught the Maple Leaf Forever, a clue to our destination. We never attempted the Star Spangled Banner. But it wasn鈥檛 very cheerful sailing roughly through fog and icebergs off the coast of Greenland. For a while we were shadowed by a U-boat and had to cut our engines and we were all told not to move or talk. We were on the last ship to leave England with children. The risks were too great, the City of Benares ahead of us but still at sea, was sunk with heavy loss of life. My mother who heard the news managed to see the passenger list and known we weren鈥檛 on it.
Canada was heaven itself. The sky was blue as blue as we sailed peacefully in warm sunshine, past Quebec to Montreal the steep banks were covered in brilliant Autumn-coloured maples, dark firs with white churches dotted here and there.
In Montreal we were housed in a large settlement house. Next morning in a playground we were watched by lots of local children, sitting on high brick walls. They stared at us as if we had come from another planet. By that time, we rather felt we had. But our troubles weren鈥檛 over. The older children were taken to the top of Mont Real where we ate ice cream and admired the wonderful view over the city.
Next day, we were on a train for a long ride to Yonkers, a suburb of New York City. There we spent the night at a very pleasant 鈥榟ome for wayward boys鈥�, after being taken to a drugstore for more ice-cream.
In the morning, on a train again to Boston, to stay in 鈥楾he New England Home Little Wanderers鈥�. The people were so earnest and kind, taking us to see the film Fantasia. During the following three days children disappeared to their new homes.
My sisters and I thought we would soon be the only ones left. Our turn came. On the 4th October we were collected and driven to a beautiful house in Pride鈥檚 Crossing Massachusetts. There were four English girls already there. They had arrived in July after rather better, and also less, travelling, and were housed in Wellesley College.
It would take many pages and hours to recount all that happened over the next four years.
It was the very real fear in 1940 that England鈥檚 fight would continue as an occupied country that decided my parents to make the huge sacrifice to part with us; not the fear of air raids. I was old enough to realise that we might never be together again.
In July 1944 all danger of invasion was over. We sailed home in lovely weather in the New Zealander Rangitata, converted to a troopship. A large number of Canadian girls and their many babies, wives of the RAF men trained in Canada, were on their way to a strange country.
We thoroughly enjoyed our voyage, all seven of us now very close friends .But, of course, we did. We were going in the right direction 鈥� home. Just in time for the doodlebugs and V2 rockets.

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