大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War web site by Karen Elmes at the Building Exploratory on behalf of Betty Houghton and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

War broke out when Betty was nine years old. She was evacuated from Forest Gate, East London, with her sister and went to live in Sea Palling in Norfolk. She was unhappy there and after six months she came home to London. By this time the Blitz had started, but Betty was not worried about the bombing because she wanted to be with her mother. However, because the bombing was so bad Betty had to be evacuated once again, this time to St Austell in Cornwall where she lived with a couple called Mr and Mrs King. She was much happier there and felt as though she were: 鈥渙n top of the sea!鈥�

After a year Betty moved back to live in London by which time her mother had moved to Etropole Road in Clapton, Hackney. Once again Betty lived under the constant threat from the bombs, although when the V1 and V2 rockets were attacking London, Mr and Mrs King asked for her to be sent back to safety in Cornwall.

Whilst in London Betty had to take shelter in many different places such as the shelter where she worked at Millers (where she made soldiers鈥� uniforms), in the brick shelters in the streets or in the Anderson shelter with her family. However one night Betty took shelter in a less conventional place 鈥� she and her sister were in the Ritz cinema in Lower Clapton watching Gone With the Wind when an air raid started. Betty and her sister ignored the air raid alerts which flashed up on the screen and stayed in the cinema to watch the whole film, even though they could feel the vibrations as bombs landed on nearby buildings.

Despite all the bombing and disruption Betty has positive memories of the war:

鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 a sad time at all, it was frightening, but it was like a different era. You were living in a different world. But the pubs were absolutely full!鈥�

This story was recorded by the Building Exploratory as part of a World War Two reminiscence project called 鈥淢emory Blitz鈥�. To find out more please go to ^{About links}

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