大象传媒

I was exactly one year old when the war broke out on 3rd September 1939, for my birthday is on 2nd September. My parents and I were on holiday in Hastings, but my father insisted that we return immediately to our home in London. We lived in the top floor flat of a house in Ealing, but rumours that the Germans were about to start bombing raids on London persuaded my father to look for what he believed would be safer accommodation, and we soon moved into a rented ground floor flat in the same borough. This was the only home I knew for the next twenty years.

Of course, I cannot recall my father being called up, but by the time I was three or four I was aware that he was in the army, and that when he came home on his very rare periods of leave, I had to forsake my place in the double bed I had been sharing with my mother, and was relegated to a camp bed in the sitting room. I never understood why we could not all three have snuggled up together!

My father was in the REME (Royal Mechanical and Electrical Engineers) and was based at Aldershot. He was never involved in actual combat, but just after the war ended, he was stationed at Bielefeld in Germany, and I can still remember his shocked reaction to the conditions he found there. When he was eventually demobbed, he came home with some bars of plain chocolate in his pocket, and a dreadful blue serge 'demob' suit which he wore to work every day until the seat and elbows shone like glass. He also brought with him some exercise books in which he had meticulously recorded everything he had been taught about engine parts and tools. I have these books still, and they are an object lesson in draughtsmanship and penmanship. He had shaved off his moustache while in the army, and was most hurt when my mother did not notice until several months later.

As I was an only child, my father's absence meant that mum and I were thrown very closely together. Money was extremely tight, and mum had to take on cleaning jobs in order to make ends meet. She was also trying to look after her aged and infirm parents at the same time, so it is not surprising that she was sometimes a little fraught. At one point, things got so bad that she was forced to use the services of a pawnbroker, but had nothing of value, so resorted to taking the spare sheets and blankets to his shop in return for a few shillings, until she could redeem them on her next pay day. She always told me that we were going to the laundry, but, even at that young age, I was not fooled. I was taken to the houses where she 'did' in an old pushchair, and was always told to, "Sit still and don't touch anything," while she swept and cleaned and polished. To this day, I have a horror of seeing women on their hands and knees, and have always vowed never to ask anyone else to do my housework for me. The only thing I could do to relieve the boredom of these long hours was to take books out of the shelves and try to read them. I date my love of books and reading from that time.

It was while mum and I were coming home from one of these jobs that we had our first encounter with a doodlebug. You could always hear these dreadful things coming from a great distance, and you knew that as soon as the engine cut out, they would drop like a stone and do untold damage to whatever they fell on. Those few seconds between the final splutter of the engine and the crash as the rocket hit the ground always seemed like an eternity, and then there would be a deep sigh of relief that you had again managed to escape, followed by an immediate pang of guilt because you knew that some other poor soul had probably just been killed. In this particular day, my mother was pushing me as usual when the familiar throb was heard in the distance. Although I was so young, I knew very well that this was a noise to be frightened of. A few yards away, there was an iron gate which led into an alleyway, which seemed about the safest place to be, but this gate was very narrow and very twisty, and mum could not get the pushchair through it. In a sudden panic, she picked me up and practically threw me over the gate, leaving the pushchair to roll into the gutter. I was not hurt, but I was very scared, because she was scared, and by the time she managed to ease herself through the gate, we were both in tears. Of course, by this time the doodlebug was miles away, and we never did find out where it dropped. Once it was clear that we were safe, mum summoned up all her dignity, took me by the hand, and sauntered nonchalantly over to where the pushchair lay on its side in the road, as if this was something she did every day.

A doodlebug did actually fall in Ealing, at a later date, only about two hundred years from our flat, and I recall mum flinging herself on top of me as the thing droned over our roof, spluttered, went silent, then dropped with the most almighty crash. Our windows shook, but the house was undamaged. There was a huge hole for several years afterwards where the rocket had fallen, where cow parsley eventually grew in profusion and the local children played football. Several shops were demolished, and three people were killed.

I do not know why I was not evacuated. Perhaps I was too young, or perhaps mum simply couldn't bear to let me go. Money was scarce and rationing was rigidly applied, but I do not remember ever being hungry or cold. The points system seemed to me quite fun, and I used to enjoy counting out the different coloured little slips in the ration books - so many for a tin of condensed milk, so many for two eggs, and so on. We were registered with a butcher, as everyone had to be, who always had a notice in his window saying 'No offal today'. I did not find out what this mysterious substance was until long after the war was over, and was very disappointed. There was great excitement one day in our neighbourhood when it became known that the local greengrocer had just had a consignment of bananas delivered, the first since the outbreak of war. Mum grabbed me and we joined the queue which had already formed outside the shop. Eventually, we were allocated our ration of two bananas, and when we got home mum gave me one, watching me with an expectant smile as I bit into it. I hated it, but even then was perceptive enough to realise that she was very proud of the treat she had managed to obtain for me, so I forced it down and told her it was lovely. I have disliked bananas with a passion ever since.

We had a Morrison shelter in our living room, which was nothing but a sheet of galvanised iron placed over the dining table, and what looked like thick chicken wire hanging from it. It was like a little private prison, and we were supposed to crawl into it and sleep there every time the air raid siren sounded, but it was often too much trouble, and we just relied on good fortune to get us safely through the night. We had also been issued with gas masks, but the smell of the rubber made me feel sick, and I refused to try it on.

I think it was in late 1944 that mum was rushed into West Middlesex Hospital with acute appendicitis and underwent an emergency operation, and I had to stay with our neighbours a few doors away. While mum was in hospital, a bomb dropped nearby, and she told of the casualties who were brought into her ward, many of them with serious wounds or burns. Because of the sudden need for beds, she was discharged earlier than she should have been, and was quite weak for some time afterwards. A few months later, I was admitted to what was then the King Edward Memorial Hospital (it is now a multi-practice medical centre) for a hernia operation, and was in for ten days. I fretted all the time, worrying that my home or my mother would be blown up. The doctors told mum that I would have to return in six months' time as they had discovered I had another hernia on the other side. Sixty years later, I am still waiting for that second operation.

I started school before the war ended, and well remember how frequently our lessons were interrupted by the air raid siren and the need to decamp to the concrete shelters in the playground. To us young children, this was all rather an exciting game, and we huddled together in the darkness, lit only by a few naked bulbs, while our teachers tried their best to keep us amused with songs and stories.

Naturally, my view of the war was very simplistic, and I understood only that our country was fighting this evil enemy somewhere many miles away. To me, it was merely a question of who could kill more of the other's people, and at the age of about four, I remember asking my mother how many more Germans were left. She said mildly, "Oh, only about six, duck," and I was perfectly satisfied.

I was six when VE Day came. I came home from school to find a single Union Jack stuck outside the house, and when mum told me the war was over, all I could think was that dad would soon be coming home for good. Rationing and shortages continued, of course, for a good few years, but it was worth putting up with the deprivation simply to know that you could go to bed without the fear of being bombed out while you slept.

Then came the unexpected result of the 1945 General Election, and little Mr Attlee was suddenly Prime Minister. I did not understand the implications of the overwhelming Labour victory, but knew that my parents had voted Labour and that they were rejoicing in their own quiet way. My particular war was over, but, in many ways, it was only just beginning for many others. We knew several people who had lost husbands or brothers or sons; my own Uncle Henry had only just made it back from Dunkirk, and was affected by the experience for the rest of his life. My Aunt Jennie's husband had been a navigator during the Battle of Britain, and was never able to settle down to a normal civilian life. These men were casualties of the war as surely as if they had been shot or wounded, but the consequences of this most appalling conflict were hidden from a child of six, whose only lasting scar was an aversion to bananas.

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