大象传媒

I was born in 1937 in Hackney Hospital in London and my name then was Olive Payne. I remember we shared a house in Tottenham; my mum, my dad and myself with my aunt, uncle and cousin. When war broke out, Auntie and Uncle wanted to move away from London so that left Mum, Dad, myself and my baby sister - she was born during the Blitz in 1940 - living with my grandparents. My parents decided they wanted to move to Southend to be nearer his family so against, I think, the laws of the time, we moved away from London into a restricted area on the outskirts of Southend-on-Sea. We weren't there for very long when one night I was lying in a cot - I was still in a cot although I was 3 years old - and my dad was downstairs mending his only pair of shoes while Mum was feeding my baby sister. I called down because even at such a young age, I knew the sound of a German plane. My dad came to the bottom of the stairs and called up, "There's been no warning. So don't worry, Lol, it must be one of ours." But not long afterwards there was a loud bang and I was buried in the cot under a brick wall. Apparently Dad ran up the stairs barefoot and rescued me -I seem to remember this but I'm not sure if it's a full memory or partly because I've been told the story. I'm pretty sure it's the former because I also remember being handed out and a neighbour, whom I used to call Auntie Ethel, running to a shop on the corner which was showing a light and banging on the door, shouting, "It's your fault! It's your fault!" There were about 3 houses hit. As I understand it now, it was a land-mine although I have never actually found any proof as to what it actually was that exploded. There were 3 people killed round the area. We had to go to the stables of some people nearby and I can remember going down into the shelter. To this day I can smell the mud and I've always been frightened of worms ever since! To this day, if I see a worm the smell of mud comes. The damp smell of mud - horrible! Our landlord didn't repair our house. I can remember going back and seeing all the damage - the curtains ripped, the windows blown in, and things like that. Other houses weren't so badly hit. In the next few weeks, my dad must have been called up to the army, because my mum was left to move us into another house, which she did, and there we stayed until I was 17, I think. I grew up there. So that was my first memory, as a child there.

Later on, Dad must have been billeted in Wisbech, near Cambridge, before he went abroad, and I have this memory of going up there with Mum and my sister to spend a bit of time with him before he went. I remember meeting a soldier on the train and he took a famcy to this sweet little girl! I can see myself now, sitting on his lap and him talking to me, and I can still feel the roughness of his soldier's khaki uniform (like I have the smell of the mud.) He gave me this little silver sixpence which I gave to my dad, and he had it all through the war and afterwards right up until he died. When he died, my mum had it in her purse as a keepsake, and after she died I had it in mine, but unfortunately my purse was stolen one day about 10 years ago, so I no longer have it. But I still think of that silver sixpence from that unknown soldier.

I can remember starting school at about 4. My sister went to nursery because Mum had to go to a factory to work. She used to take us out at 7.30 in the dark mornings, pushing my sister in the pram with me walking alongside. I used to go in to play with the nursery children and then go to my class, and go back to the nursery after the school. If there was an air raid warning, we had to go out and down into the brick shelters.

Where we lived, we didn't have a Morrison shelter, the indoor one, but we had a brick shelter out in the garden which was used for all the kids in the neighbourhood to play in. It was a church, a school, a hospital, a home. We never used it for safety so if there was a really bad air raid, Mum, my sister and I used to go over to stay with friends. They had the Morrison shelter before us, so she, her mum and dad (he was home as well) and her brother and sister used to sleep inside, while we slept on top. But if it got really bad, we would all dive in together. We did get our shelter towards the end of the war, and my sister and I used it as a tap-dancing top! Other times, we would just sleep under the stairs. My sister always seemed to be wrapped in one of those colourful, crocheted blankets, and there would be spiders around. Mum could barely get in but I suppose she felt safe, even if it wasn't. We used to leave the front door open and the old warden used to come round and check on us as well. But I'm not frightened of spiders, despite being frightened of worms!

The Volunteer Fire Service took over Perry's, the car salesroom at the end of the road, so the firemen used to be up there and they used to make beautiful wooden toys so we always had some for
Christmas. I suppose mum used to buy them - little cots and doll's furniture, and things like that. We didn't have many toys but I remember a little pram that didn't have a handle and we used to dress the cat up for a doll - we even put a bonnet on the cat! We had rabbits and chickens, and we grew vegetables although I imagine that was mainly after the war.

I remember not having sweets or fruit. We had beautiful freedom, though. We lived in a cul-de-sac and we used to play in the fields, boys and girls of all ages would play very happily all day together. We picked blackberries and apples and crab apples. I remember the fields were beautiful with poppies and blue butterflies. And I don't remember being frightened. I suppose it was our mums (we didn't see much of our dads at all) who kept us from being frightened, and being so young, we knew no different.

I always did think that I had been hit by a doodlebug and it wasn't until years after, when we actually went up to Churchill's War Rooms and were looking at the history, that suddenly I noticed that the doodlebugs didn't come in until later in the war. I was quite indignant when I realised that I (or rather, the house) had been hit by an ordinary bomb!

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