大象传媒

This story was submitted to the Peoples War site by Hester Gorman of Cumbria Libraries on behalf of Violet Ostick and has been added to the site with her permission

I was one of many children evacuated during the War. I was 14, my brothers were 12 years and 5 years old, also my sister 8 years old. We were taken by bus one Friday morning 2 days before the War was declared, from our school, holding a few clothes and our gas masks, then onto a train. We arrived in Oxford many hours after leaving the East End of London not knowing where we were going. We had to sit on the floor in a village school with many more children, just the flicker of candles in the Hall was our only light.
People from the village walked around us choosing who they going to billet us with. There were four of us, which was difficult as not many people wanted four children. At last a very kind lady from the village took us, even though we had to sleep in a bunk house in the garden.
We went to the village school. Village children went in the morning, and Londoners in the afternoon.
After a few weeks six of us decided to go back to London. We put on extra clothes so we didn't have to carry them and cause suspicion. We managed to get a lift to the city of Oxford, where we were dropped off. A police despatch rider was waiting for us. My sister had gone back and told our foster parents. We were sent back. That caused something to talk about in the village.
Nothing was happening in London so back I went and started work, leaving my brothers and sister in the village. My brothers stayed with the foster parents for a long period of the War, especially my 5 year old brother. He stayed until he was about 14 as Mrs. Lane who we stayed with, lost her son who was in the Navy and went down with the Ark Royal when it was sunk. She treated my brother like her own son and was very upset when he left.
One Saturday afternoon I went to the cinema. Opposite the cinema was the East India Docks. I remember the film was 'Old MOther Riley'. That's when the bombing started ('Black Saturday'). The Docks and the East End of London were bombed to the ground with hundreds of German planes dropping bombs. I took shelter, people were screaming, everything around you was burning. I had to walk home to Bow, about 2 miles from the Docks. I worked my way through the streets and houses and factories that were ablaze. I saw 'Bryant and May' the match factory, topple over slowly and crash into the Thames. Other factories did the same. I had to weave my way home through the debris and fires. Buses couln't go through the streets so you had to walk. What upset me was I had paid my bus fare, 1 1/2d and had to get off the bus!
After many nights of bombing and going to different shelters, some with water almost up to your knees and many narrow escapes, we came out of the shelter one morning to find our house and many more had been hit by a landmine. My family had to leave so my mother and father and two other brothers made our way to Paddington Station. We had very little belongings. We arrived at Paddington Station where we met a group of people leaving London. We decided to make for Oxford again to the village of Eynsham, where we had been evacuated to. We arrived in the village square. The village people organised it so we would all be able to stay so we lived in the village hall. Mattresses were brought in, and food. Women and children slept on the Hall floor and men slept on the stage. Saturday night was dance night so we couldn't go to bed until after the dance.
After some months living like this, condemned cottages were made use of and we had a condemned cottage with army furniture. It was some years before the family could all live together. We finally did and moved to the city of Oxford where I brought up my own family of 3 daughters and one son .

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