大象传媒

I was born in Portsmouth, where my father - Sydney George Whitefield - had a coal business. This got bombed in the air-raids which prompted us to move to Sandhills, Witley in Surrey. My father got a job at the T.B. hospital at Milford.

My younger brother - Derek Arthur - and I had a wonderful childhood in the countryside. My mother - Dorothy May (nee Marchant) who suffered with bronchitus at Portsmouth (possibly the sea air) found she was so much better in the countryside, so it was decided to stay. I think they both missed Portsmouth dreadfully.

We would often find aunts and cousins would suddenly arrive for a few days after a particularly bad air raid had occurred at Portsmouth.

My mother must have felt it strange leaving Portsmouth, with all the " mod cons" - running water, flush toilets, electric light, gas stove to cook on, etc. In the country we lived in Well Lane , and had a well at the front for drinking water - you had to get it up with a bucket - and a well in the back garden, which was rain water for all the washing. (Later when I had yellow jaundice it was put down to the water from these wells perhaps being contaminated by rats.)

My mother had to fill oil lamps as we had no electricity, the coalman delivered this. The radio worked by "accumulator" - a man came on Mondays to bring the recharged one back and take the one we,d been using to recharge.It cost sixpence (in old money) a week.

Cooking was by coal or wood range and you lit a fire under the copper to heat the water for washing the clothes.My mother had a 'modern' mangle, to squeeze the water out,which folded down and you then used it for a table. The rooms were either heated by a fireplace or sometimes oil 'Valour' stoves. The bedrooms in winter were freezing!

Worst of all was the outside loo across the back yard - a huge bucket under a wooden bench with a hole in it. Can you imagine in winter, snow or pouring rain, not to mention spiders?..we used to kick the side to frighten them. Men would come from the council, I guess, to empty them once a week in the middle of the night.(What a job!)

I went to school in Witley, six of us had to walk nearly three miles every day and the same to come home, but we were never late and remained very healthy! Of course in the country, we all had gardens where everyone grew beautiful vegetables and fruits and a neighbour had chickens, so we had eggs and the odd tough chicken, and rabbits etc. .

My mother would give a bar of soap to a neighbour in exchange for a dress for me which she would alter, or sometimes some plums and apples. I remember my mother coming home from Godalming one day very excited, when she'd been able to get a small bottle of banana essence - as we couldn't get bananas! I can't remember what she put it in though. We had dried egg mix and dried milk.

I remember another time she came home and said there was a queue at the wool shop,so she stopped to see what it was and she got eight ounces of dark brown wool which I made into a cardigan. Dad would make thumb mats out of a sack and cut old trousers and jackets into little strips and thread them into the sacking - very smart!

While at the school one day, we were doing lessons and a Doodle Bug went over; the other children didn't know what it was, but YOU NEVER FORGET THAT SOUND! Before I knew it I was under the teacher's desk, the only 'table-like' structure in the room! The Doodle Bug had stopped and come down a quarter of a mile from the school.

Not far from Witley School on Milford Common there was a big army camp, mostly Canadian soldiers.Each Christmas they would have our school up and give us a wonderful Christmas party. They made each child a toy, mostly wooden, and put on a lovely tea.We found it strange because we always had the cakes first!...then were given sandwiches.

Where we lived at the bottom of the lane was a farm. The farmer was the father of two of our school friends and he often had German prisoners of war to help with potato picking and sawing wood.These men would collect hazel wood (twigs I suppose) from the copse nearby and make the women of the village baskets.

Another man from the war was from Poland. He met and married a lady neighbour from the village and stayed over here after the war. He was well thought of - a very likeable 'Johnny' - and set up his own hairdresser business. He has even trimmed mine and all the family's hair.

The last memory I have (because we didn't get sweets) was the weekend sweets were back in the shops. Our parents took us up by train to Kingston, outside London, to see Flanagan and Allan in 'Underneath the Arches' at the theatre. And right next to the theatre was this sweet shop, the windows full of glass jars. Dad said we could each have one choice, we were spell bound not knowing what to choose, sadly I can't remember what I did...

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