大象传媒

Submitted on behalf of Mrs. Bright by Alex Crawford:

I was ten when the war finished. My parents brought me up to Trafalgar Square and I was up on the lion, over there. I remember when we slept in the Oval Underground station, that was our shelter. We used to walk up there every night with our bedding and they used to have the entertainers there, every night, Lional Blair and his sister, they used to do turns all along the station and these two sisters called Girt and Daisy.

My future husband was twelve years older than me and when he used to come home on leave, he used to bring back American gum. I had long pig-tails and he used to pull my hair. Never did I think I'd marry him! We grew up together.

My husband was in the war, he was still in France on VE Day. We had great parties. we had an old lady that lived in our road, Hetty King, and she organised it. There was a school at the bottom of the road, of Morats Street.

That's where they got all the tables out and I remember we made Union Jacks out of cardboard. Everyone down the road they all put out what they had left of their rations, it was marvellous. I remember this old lady made sausage rolls and the kids would say 'Oh, these sausage rolls taste funny. I wonder what pastry she made them with.' It must have come from the black market or fell off the the back of a lorry!

I've got an aunt who used to fill her bath with meat! And you couldn't get meat! There used to be a shop where my brother and I would take it in turns to go and get a little bag of coal and our mum used to say 'Oh, we've had ours. We're not allowed any more', but sometimes we sent my little brother down to get another bag of it.

Everyone was so friendly though. A great community, where everyone knew everyone else and stuck together.

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