大象传媒

For a while, life settled into a kind of new drab routine. But as 1940 progressed, France fell, the Low countries were over-run, and it became clear that invasion was a real frightening possibility. In those threatening days we still managed to go to Ashford, where a large part of the bottom field had been cultivated to 'dig for victory'. We grew all kinds of fruit and vegetables- raspberries, beans, rhubarb, cabbages, etc, while we already had trees yielding plums, cox's apples, pears, damsons, and greengages. Red and Black currants grew in another part of the garden with rows of rhubarb, and tomatoes grew in the greenhouse. Any surplus we gave to relatives and friends and neighbours.

One summer weekend in early June 1940 we were trying to enjoy the warm sunshine and blue skies, the scent of Lilac and May blossom and the birdsong in our Ashford garden, while knowing how desperate things were in France. Almost, despite the distance we could hear the cacophony of noise from the French coast borne on the wind, and feel the ground tremble with the vibration from the firing of the big guns and the bombing of the French coastal ports by our Air Force.

There was a cold, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. What was going to happen now that our troops were trapped at the coast around Dunkirk? The signal for an invasion was to be the ringing of church bells, which had been silent since the beginning of the war. Mercifully, those bells remained silent until they rang joyously again when the war in Europe was won.
As the evacuation of Dunkirk began, troop trains began to come up to London. Many of them stopped at the 'North Pole' in a railway cutting beside the Scrubbs and the Wormwood Scrubbs prison. (the North Pole was actually the name of Public house on the corner of Wood Lane and the North Pole, leading to St Quintins Gardens).

The trains stopped in the cutting while awaiting dispersal to various main line stations for the troops to be directed back to what remained of their units in various parts of the country, or to hospitals. Local people brought tea and sandwiches and cigarettes to the troops while they were stopped at the North Pole. My parents and I went and saw them there. We climbed down the grassy bank and one soldier gave me his RA (Royal Artillery) badge. Some were tattered uniforms, some only had on odd articles of borrowed mufti- and yet others had arms in slings, head bandages or crutches. All had days of beard growth. All looked exhausted, and dishevelled, yet they managed cheery grins and showed typical cockney whit and grit as they gratefully accepted the sustenance on offer, thankful no doubt to be alive and back on British soil, thanks to the heroism of our indomitable Navy, Air Force cover, and the courage of the skippers and crew of all the 'little ships' . Many of them were little more than boys, who took their frail craft time and time again across the channel to bring back our men from the shores of France.

I was a Girl Guide, having been enrolled in the spring of 1939. When the bombing began on London in the August of 1940, we were organised by Captain into groups to scrub out empty houses in the district in the Noel Rd/ Princes Gardens area for families from the East End who were bombed out, which at this time was taking the brunt of the German attacks. Buckingham Palace was hit twice. How naive we were to believe Acton would be relatively 'safe'.

One fine evening in the late summer of 1940 my parents and I had gone for a walk and were standing by the railway bridge at North Baling Station when the first bombs lit up the Eastern sky as a warm dusk was falling. The date was September 15th. London had had its 200th raid by mid October. The sky began to glow red in the east as we made hurried tracks for home. By the end of October the 'Battle of Britain' was over. It didn't cease dramatically, but died gradually away.

We'd had a Morrison shelter installed in my Father's study - a small front room in which was a bookcase, a large desk and a small bureau. In this, night after night, I, and my Mother and the cats took shelter and tried to sleep on the mattress installed there. Rarely, my Father would join us, but mostly he was out on fire-watch with the Home Guard, being past call-up age.

Night after night the sirens sounded as darkness fell. Often, the all-clear wouldn't sound until dawn. I dreaded moonlit nights most of all as everything on the ground must have been clear to the raiders despite the blackout. Wardens patrolled the streets, and a knock would come at the door if by chance a chink of light showed anywhere. One night a flare was dropped hanging below a parachute. There was an eerie silence as we watched, and everything was lit up as bright as day. No bombs were dropped.

Sometimes we risked going up to bed to sleep if there was no moon, or a lot of cloud cover. Often, we had to get up again if the sirens sounded or we heard bombs drop. One night, the window in my bedroom shattered, the glass flying onto my bed. Luckily I was in the shelter downstairs. Bombs often fell very near. Some fell too close for comfort. One HE bomb killed 14 people in 4 houses about 50 yards away on the opposite side of the road from our house, just beyond the Church (St Martin's). Another fell not far behind our house killing my school friend's granny and older sister, and badly injuring her parents, as well as neighbours.

When the bomb fell in Hale Gardens, my Father was as usual out fire watching. My Mother made endless cups of tea for the rescued and the rescuers and filled numerous hot water bottles for the injured and shocked people.

A landmine fell at the bottom of our road, but fortunately didn't explode and was able to be defused.

When daylight raids occurred it sometimes meant spending hours in the School air raid shelters, where we tried to continue with lessons. Sometimes 2 or more lessons would be going on in different corners of the shelter. If the lesson had to be abandoned- for instance a science lesson- we each had something to do, such as knitting or embroidery. Sometimes the Mistresses organised spelling bees or something similar to keep us occupied. I worked on a tapestry of an autumn forest scene. It wasn't finished until years after the war, when I could sometimes work on it in a quiet period on night duty once I started nursing.

The school had a swimming pool and in the summer we were allowed to swim, if when the sirens sounded we could get out of the pool, and , in the words of our staid Headmistress 'don one article of clothing' and get to the shelters within 3 minutes!
After 6 frightening, dangerous weeks we once again left London. This time we went to Crowthorne, Berkshire. There we stayed temporarily with my Aunt and Uncle who had rented part of a house in Pinehill Road. We soon found rooms to rent in a house opposite with an elderly man and his spinster daughter, named Pottage!

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