大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from Lancs home guard on behalf of Val Potter and has been added to the site with her permission. Val Potter fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was 13 when war broke out. We lived in Bishop's Stortford, in Hertfordshire. My father was on leave from Sri Lanks (then Ceylon). He returned there immediately. No planes then, the sea voyage took 3 weeks. My eldest brother finished his university course and joined the army. Lorryloads of soldiers began to roll through Stortford. We all felt vastly patriotic and I overcame my shyness to wave to them! They waved back and cheered. At weekends I went to help with the communal meals for evacuees from E London. At home we had no room for evacuees - though later we had an evacuee dog - but many families in the town did.

When, in 1941, invasion was feared, my mother left my second brother at boarding school and took us two youngest to Little Langdale in the Lake District. We rented a cottage where there was no water laid on - it had to be fetched from a spring 200 yards up the road - and there was a 6" gap under the kitchen door - floods when it rained. Our toilet was one of five in a row across the yard. We learnt to be hardy. School was 6 miles away in Ambleside: a mile's cycle and a 5 mile bus ride. One day in winter deep snow stopped the buses, so I walked to school with three local girls. My youngest brother siezed the chance to have a day off. Another family from Stortford was evacuated to the village and I used to cycle off for the day with one of them in the holidays. I remember careering down Kirkstone Pass and hoping my brakes would hold! There was a taxi in the village but no one had a car.

In 1941, we returned home. At Ambleside PNEU schoole I had done no science, Latin or maths (lots of arts) so I had 2 years Latin and maths to do in one year for School Cert - but passed. After another year I was told about Occupational Therapy (then new). I though it sounded fascinating. It seemed that OTs were much needed - so I left school to go to the OT College in London. A bitterly cold mile cycle ride at 6.30am (no stockings to save coupons!) and train to London seeing bombed houses en route. The trains were unheated.

We took our first year exams in Queen's Square as the first doodlebugs were falling (June '44). I remember our stifled hilarity as we saw the invigilator's bottom sticking up above her table under which she had dived for safety! The doodles continued over the next year.

In September '44 we had to start at hospitals - 3 months at each. I went to a general hospital in Surrey, where they were rehabilitating Forces patients; a mental hospital in Tooting; another general hospital at St Albans and a sanatorium in Sussex.

On VJ Day I joined the crowd doing the conga round the square in St Albans - everyone went mad! The war was over.

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