大象传媒

I was at Kilburn Polytechnic, and because our school was in London we had to be evacuated, my two sisters and mother lived in North Wembley so they stayed in their home. We never knew where we were going. I was 13 years old, put on a train with our rations, gas mask and a little case with our clothes in.

On arrival at Northampton we were marched down the streets; ours was Lower Priory Street, a row of terraced houses that鈥檚 not there now.

The women came out and we were put three of us to a woman who took all our rations away from us. The girls I was with had fled Germany before the war, Anita Rosenburn and Elisa Muller. We were put three in a bed, and got bitten all over with bugs. She really only wanted the billeting money.

Our Headmistress moved us, on a very hot day, we walked all the way to Kingsley Road where I was then with a woman who said I could not do my embroidery on a Sunday. She kept talking about her operations, so I fainted and had a big lump on my head and was put to bed. I remember writing to my mother saying that everything was fine.

She then went into hospital and I then went to her friend鈥檚 house up the road. These people were very kind to me, as my father had died at the age of 28 years leaving my mother with three little girls.

The family consisted of five boys and one girl who was at the grammar school and played the piano. So we had good sing songs round the piano and played games on my birthday (Sardines, Murder etc), all good fun.

It was a very cold winter in 1940 with deep snow and we had some lessons at the poly and then for other lessons would walk across what was called the race course to Barrack Road School. Trenches were dug across this ground to stop the Germans landing. And as the ground was covered in snow, and it was dark I fell in one of the trenches 鈥� we all had a good laugh.

In the evenings, the PE teacher, a Miss McEvoy who played cricket for England, would get us out of billets to make crafts and learn ballroom dancing.

Going up the road one evening I said 鈥淪orry鈥� to a sandbag 鈥� it felt like a body. After one year we returned to our school, but the war got worse. I started a job in New Bond Street, dress making, as that is what I trained for, until 1942.

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