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This story was submitted to the People’s War by Ms Vu and Cassie from Bodsham CEP School and has been added to website on behalf of Mrs. Margaret Chapman with her permission and she fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

A Different War (Mrs Maggie Chapman)
My father was in Africa, Nigeria to be exact. My two sisters, my mother and I went from Liverpool by Elder-Dempster Line (cargo boat, carrying 12 passengers). It took us a month, stopping at every port on the west coast of Africa. We arrived in Port Harcourt, to be met by my father, who had our little pet — a chimpanzee called Rascal, a name my father gave him. He used to sit at a table and chair, and ate with a spoon and fork. He ate bananas.
We lived in Aba. We didn’t go to school because there was no school. My elder sister went to a church missionary society school while my younger sister and I were taught at home. Mrs Graham was a missionary.
We had a wonderful childhood, with no rationing, unlike those children in England. We learned swimming in a river; people used to canoe past us, singing.
When we were slightly older, it was decided that we should go to school — to a Catholic Convent, the only school around. We were fortnightly boarders. We were the only white children in school. I was eight and not nervous because there were three of us, with our own little dining room and our own dormitory above the chapel. All the other girl boarders were Nigerian. I guessed that there were 150 children there.
Theresa was my best friend. She gave me a little religious book, which I still keep.
After we arrived my father had nine months leave, but because England was at war, we couldn’t come back to England and had to go to S. Africa, to Cape Town. We lived in a rented house, in Camps Bay. It was a beautiful old house, with castellated roof. We went to Camps Bay Primary School.
I had scarlet fever and was taken away on my own and kept in isolation. My mother could only look at me through the door. I must have been eight and a half. All my toys and clothes were burnt. I was there for a month and had to wear hospital clothes.
To get to school, we used to have to go on Gibbon’s transport. First class was the seat next to the driver, second class was on the wooden seat behind him, third class was in the back with the animals and other people. It was in the jungle then. We used to march with all.
My sister didn’t like cabbage. She pushed it to one side, but it came back at dinner time, then sometimes at breakfast. So finally I removed it and put it in my knickers’ pockets to throw it away later. Unfortunately this had to happen quite often.
After nine months, we went back to Nigeria, and back to the convent. Unfortunately, at 41, my father died of pneumonia in Nigeria, and was buried in Port Harcourt the day after.
We were taken to Lagos to stay with friends, waiting for a boat to bring us home. This was just after the war. We came back on a troop ship, with the Italian prisoners of war, and also RAF personnel. We had to go in convoy and in zigzag, to avoid U-boat bombs.
Our chimpanzee was taken care of by the army.
We had to wear hard hats for the sun and had to wear mosquito boots. We wore them because of the snakes.
We had 3 house boys, 2 cooks, 1 gardener and 1 night watchman.
When we got back to England after the war, we used to sing for those in peril on the sea. We got back to rationing, no servants and clothing coupons. We lived in my grandmother’s house, with my auntie, in a Victorian house, with no inside toilet and a bath by the kitchen range.
I was 10 when we came back. Rationing was not fun. We used to get food parcels.
We came back in 1944 and went to a Masonic school.

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