大象传媒

I had lived through the 1941 Nazi bombardment of Plymouth and my parents decided that it would be better for my brother Ron and me to be evacuated to Cornwall. So we went across the Tamar in the Spring of 1942 to the house of my Uncle Charlie and Aunt Ede who lived at St Ann's Chapel not far from Gunnislake. Our stay here was brief as my father had to get back to his war work at Devonport Dockyard and my mother wanted to be with him taking 4 year old baby Ron with her. I was considered old enough at nine to remain in the countryside where it would be safer. My aunt and uncle were not able to keep me on permanently, so I was billeted out about 100 yards back up the main road in a house which was part of a terrace of old houses set below the level of the road.Here I joined a London family of evacuated children called Sylvia, Clara and Tony Booth, all about my age, and we were looked after by a Mrs Pettifer. I stayed with this extended family for a few months until the Nazi raids on Plymouth had abated.

Going to the lavatory was an arduous business because the shed containing it was at the bottom of a long garden and we had to struggle with a galvanised bucket full of water down to the shed every time we used it. We children had to walk over a mile along the main road to the village school at Gunnislake each day. We took sandwiches and screw-top treacle jars filled with rhubarb and custard for our midday meal. We played in the grassy field at the rear of the school, where Clara and Sylvia were adept at organising us into acting out scenes from Snow White or Cinderella. On Saturdays it was exciting when the mobile cinema came to the village hall. A screen would be unpacked and assembled and we would pay our pennies and clatter over the bare floorboards, while a scratchy record played "Estudiantina" by Waldteufel. Then the hall would be darkened , the projector set going and we would be entertained by the latest Will Hay film. On Sundays our morning routine was similar to weekdays, except that halfway along the main road to Gunnislake, we would attend morning prayer in a red corrugated iron building that acted as our place of worship. After Sunday lunch we would go for walks in the coutryside over the hills and through the woods, picking bluebells and primroses and eating the fresh green beech leaves called "bread and cheese". Sometimes we ventured as far as the old ruined mine buildings, but had been warned to keep well away from them in case we fell into a deserted mine shaft. I'm glad to say that I returned to Plymouth in one piece and in time to study for the scholarship which I passed in 1943.

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