大象传媒

I was five when the war broke out. I was evacuated a number of times. Mostly I really didn't know what was happening to me.

The first time, after spending a night at my aunt's, I was dispatched with my two girl cousins by train, to Reading, I believe. I remember having a label tied to me and sitting in the back of a lorry with lots of other children. We ended up in the house of, I suppose, a fairly elderly couple.

For some reason I don't think we were there very long. Perhaps, my parents weren't happy about the arrangements.

The next time I was evacuated 'for real'. I was sent to The Lizard in Cornwall to stay with a friend of my parents whose husband was in the RAF and based at St Mawgan. She had rented a bungalow, Tamarisk', where I stayed with her son and a cousin. As a London child I was intrigued by the oil lamps, primus stove for cooking and a radio with an accumulator that had to be periodically taken into the village to be charged up.

It was a delightful environment although I was not aware of this at the time. All I knew was how deeply I was missing my parents.

Eventually my parents' friend had to leave and I was taken over by the family of her husband, 'the Mitchells'. This was a large family with the oldest member in the Navy and the youngest, a toddler.

To be continued.........

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