大象传媒

My recollections of the war are not dramatic, but rather the day to day life in Horley, a comparatively peaceful part of the country.

I was not evacuated nor did my mother, as parent of a small child, have to work in a factory or on the land. However, because we had a spare room, we had to take in strangers. The first of these was a lady who had come down from London with a children's home and she remained a firm friend of my mother's even after the war. The second arrival was a policeman - quite a character. He gave us children permission to build a bonfire in the middle of the road which needless to say burnt very well and left a large hole!

At first, when the siren went, we sheltered in the alcove under the chimney but then acquired an indoor shelter. I loved this, a little house all to myself. In went bed, toys, the lot. The top of this metal construction was always cold but excellent for board games and jigsaw puzzles.

If the alarm went while at school, we had to run down the road to a shelter and I must confess, the large spiders in it frightened me much more than anything that might come from the sky. More pleasant were the tins of dried egg and especially the chocolate powder, licking your fingers and sticking them in the tin of the latter.

There always seemed to be fresh eggs for me as the neighbours on both sides kept chickens and exchanged the eggs for vegetables grown in our garden or for feeding stuff for the hens. Most scraps, such as potato peelings went into the 'pig bin' placed in the street.

Also in the road, were Italian prisoners of war, who always seemed to be digging a trench. We were not supposed to speak to them, it wouldn't have made much difference if we had, because they spoke no English and we didn't speak Italian. They loved to show us photos of their children and were given cups of tea by our mothers and they didn't seem at all frightening to us children.

Sometimes, as a treat, we would take a bus from Horley into Reigate when the 'grapevine' informed us that 'La Trobe's' the toyshop were expecting a delivery. We queued and took whatever was available - I had a little square wooden box with bent over nails as taps, a sink for the doll's house my uncle had built. If the siren went, we sheltered in the caves in Tunnel Road, or went up into the Castle grounds to see what was going on in the sky.

Our neighbour had bottles of perfume which came in blue hard plastic type containers in the shape of a grandfather clock or wardrobe and these cases also served as furniture for the doll's house. 'Evening in Paris' the perfume was called.

Both my father and uncle were in the RAF and on their return from leave it was always exciting when the kit bags arrived in the hall and gifts from foreign parts appeared. These were mainly small wooden clogs from their flights into Belgium and Holland and we seemed to have endless pairs of them.

I remember too, the parties held for us children by the Canadians. We always came home with bags crammed with goodies. There was also a Jewish family, who lived in our road and we tried really hard to get an invitation to their son's parties as they were the only people in the road who had a refrigerator and could produce ice cream.

On the dark side, there was the odd bomb that dropped, but I suppose as a young child I was protected from all the difficulties faced by families at that time. Everything seemed normal to me as I had never known anything else.

Contributed by Thelma Wilby

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