大象传媒

Interview by Henriette Wood-Grossenbacher with Mrs. Diana Shervington of Lyme Regis who spent the wartime as a WREF around London and a housewife in Surrey. Diana is a valued member of our local church, columnist of the parish magazine and mother of a friend. She also gave an interview to a colleague and gave kindly permission to add her stories to the people鈥檚 war website.
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I met Rupert whilst spending the weekend with my parents. He was up at White Hill warden. My mother got terribly bad sciatica, she was very ill, and I being the youngest was told, I must go and look after her. I had to be seconded out from the RAF for six months. That鈥檚 when I met Rupert properly. My parents were living at Epshot, which is close to Selbourne, Gilbert White鈥檚 Selbourne. He was the man who started natural history with his book of natural history. Lady Baring also lived in Upshot, with no petrol in those days she used to go with a Pony and trap every day to the camp which was down the hill and up the next Hill to White Hill and she ran an awfully nice somewhere to come and eat and talk for the man as opposed to naffy.. But much nicer. I started to go with her while I was at home looking after mum. One day, just as we got up there in the Pony and trap off went the air raid siren and a German plane came 鈥渮 d d r d d鈥� right across and killed three people and Rupert rushed and pushed me into a trench with him, and that鈥檚 really how I got to know him. Our eating place had proper bacon and egg. The men had to pay for it but they preferred it, it was much nicer. I was working behind the counter. I was serving the food out. Of course my parents were not too pleased. My father was a lieutenant colonel. My sister Felicity鈥檚 husband was a wing commander and Rupert was only a sergeant. But it didn鈥檛 matter a bit. I knew he was going somewhere. I knew he would do well. Felicity was an ATA pilot right through the war, flying planes from the factory all over England including bombers without any lights and usually without a co-pilot. Very dangerous work. My mother wouldn鈥檛 allow me to be a pilot, saying that one was enough)

When Rupert went off to India and Burma it was frightening. We just had to correspond and we were not allowed to say much. You couldn鈥檛 say all that was going on, and neither could he. But we managed to keep in touch regularly. When I had my daughter Claire I had to go up all the way to Woking maternity hospital and it was again in the middle of the Blitz and there were German planes coming over every night and I felt so vulnerable. I cried and cried and cried because everybody else had visitors, their husband and so on and mine was miles away in India/Burma. I didn鈥檛 even know where, and do you know what, he got a telegram. He was taking the first flotilla up the Irrawaddy river with chintage [spelling] dropping them off to fight the Japanese at the time, and it took him 21 days to get up to Kalewa which is as far as he had to go, 21 days. When he got there he got this telegram that a daughter was born and then he got a second telegram that a daughter was born. He thought he had got twins. And of course I didn鈥檛 hear from him for ages, because he was on board ship taking this flotilla up and back again and then picking up the chintage afterwards. Very dangerous but he couldn鈥檛 say to me what he was doing. And I mean it was all very scary and I was miserable with the Blitz. And I was all by myself (she was born in September 43). My mother and father were at home, but they couldn't come and visit me at Woking, there was no petrol. My parents did drive me to Woking, but they were only allowed 2 gallons for a whole month, they鈥檇 have used almost all their allowance by getting me up to Woking and picking me up again. I was so alone. They kept you in a whole week then and the German planes going overhead every night. I was scared stiff. And I didn鈥檛 hear from my husband for a long time. When Claire was born I was sharing a house with another woman who鈥檚 husband was abroad. Quite close to that [prisoner of war] camp. The place was called Bordon. I wanted to send a postcard to Rupert of the children and I was walking with the pram towards Bordon when all the tanks were collecting for D-Day. They so terrified the children, they screamed and screamed. I had to go back home and go without. This other lady, her husband was the same. She and I together you know, she had a small child, and I had a small child and we really concentrated on them. And it was really funny because just up the road was an Italian prisoner of war camp and the Italian prisoners all used to come walking past and they鈥檇 say: 鈥淥ooohooh la bambino鈥� and they鈥檇 so admire us. We had to be jolly careful or they鈥檇 have been in bed with us. They were missing their families and they would bring out their family picture. 鈥淥oh la bambina鈥�, unless I was careful they鈥檇 be picking her up out of the pram and kissing her and all. I stayed in contact with the lady quite some time. Her husband was a colonel; Rupert was by then a captain.

When he, Rupert, came home, the day was dreadful. I鈥檇 just had an appendix operation, I got appendicitis. I鈥檇 come out of hospital the night before. I didn鈥檛 know he was coming home and my tummy was all strapped up still from my appendix operation. Rupert turned up and of course he wanted to hug me and I didn鈥檛 want to be hugged. Claire and Evelyn only knew his photograph and they screamed to him wanting to hug them. And he was dying to hug us and none of us wanted to be hugged. The children then were 3 and 5. Claire was 3 and Evelyn 5. Then he said he鈥檇 cook us breakfast. He cooked our entire week鈥檚 ration. It was very traumatic. In the army they had as much as they wanted, he didn鈥檛 know. It was an awfully bad start. The children were used to his lovely photograph, they said, that鈥檚 daddy, not this huge man wanting to hug them. I locked my door and he bashed it down. It鈥檚 an amusing story now but it wasn鈥檛 amusing at the time. It was awfully difficult to start with. Evelyn got used to him much quicker than Claire did. He didn鈥檛 know she was on the way till he got out to India. Evelyn he had seen once or twice when he was on leave. Rupert was there when Evelyn was born. After the war he went back to the railways and he went right to the top. He devised a plan to keep the stations open by getting tickets on the train etc. He managed to save a lot of jobs. He was furious with Beeching. Rupert also planned the modern timetable he was a real moderniser Rupert.
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I had a very exciting time.

I just had to manage.

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