大象传媒

I was eleven when the war started. At school in Penn, near High Wycombe, we had "Warship Weeks" where we raised funds for the Navy. We also had "Spitfire Weeks" for the RAF. We went up to the woods, collected wood and sold it at 2d. a bundle in the big houses for kindling. This was the only time I got my name on the school notice board for doing anything useful!

I was also in the guides. We would collect waste paper for the war effort; an early form of recycling. We pushed a bath chair around the village to hold all the paper in. At school when evacuees arrived, we resented them because they took over. We were on a fortnightly cycle; mornings for the locals and afternoons for the evacuees. Then we swapped over. Sometimes they messed up our work if they were in during the mornings.

I clearly remember German bombers going over for hours on end. Later we heard that they were heading for Coventry. On their way back they dropped any remaining bombs and landmines to lighten their load. They didn't aim at anything in particular. Next morning we went out bomb-hole hunting, looking for souveniers.

I left school at 14, going into private service as a kitchen maid. It was horrid as I had to be up at 6 o'clock to light up the range. I kept it polished with black lead. Keeping the whole kitchen spotless was my main job.

After a year, I left to train as a nursery nurse in nearby Beaconsfield. I remember the evacuees coming down from London in a fleet of double decker buses. They were young babies, as well as children aged 2 to 5.

I also recall waves and waves of gliders in the sky being pulled on their way to Arnhem. The sky was black with them. I was washing 100 pairs of kiddies socks at the time and these gliders filled the window as I looked out.

I remember a plane crashing in a field near the childrens home. There was great rumble, then an almighty crash. We didn't know what to do. We later found it was a British plane, either a Halifax or a Lancaster. We weren't allowed near but we heard there were no survivors. Presumably the plane was coming back from a raid and ran out of fuel. This my most frightening incident of the war. We got into trouble as we were late back, well after 10 o'clock when we should have got in.

An American B17 bomber also crashed on a chicken farm. I suppose the farmer and his friends had roast chicken for a while afterwards!

Later, when working in a nursing home, we decided to go for a night walk. We were searching for mushrooms by moonlight. This was near a searchlight battery. The dogs guarding it must have heard us for they started barking. This alerted the soldiers who trained the searchlight across the fields. I climbed up a nut tree, arms and legs akimbo with my bag of mushrooms. I hoped they wouldn't see me, but the light stopped on me. I'm sure the guards were having a laugh at my expense! Eventually they turned it off and we returned home.

Although it was a tragic time, because we were young we enjoyed ourselves. Many of the soldiers just lived for today. I had lots of boyfriends; American, Australian and English. There were lots of opportunities for dances, most of these were in Beaconsfield and High Wycombe. I eventually married one of the English ones!

(PK)

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