大象传媒

By Lynn Smallwood

My earliest memory of the war was when I was about 4 years old and was sent to the shop clutching a sixpence to buy bananas. As I was walking long the street I heard an aeroplane and on looking up saw something long and black falling out of the bottom of the plane. I had no idea what it was but was watching fascinated. It could only have been a few seconds of watching before I felt someone grab me from behind, lift me up, run with me and throw me through the door of a building nearby. It turned out to be a public house and as I lay there petrified, I could hear banging and crashing and what sounded like bricks raining down. People were shouting and screaming. Somebody picked me up and asked me where I lived. When we went outside there was an awful noise everywhere and piles of bricks and people shouting and crying. I was pushed through the front door and saw a lady sitting on the bottom stair crying. (This is the one memory I have of my mother) who probably thought something had happened to me. All I remember then is a man coming with a man and saying that he was going to take us children away and that was that last time we ever saw our mother and we never heard from her either. We didn鈥檛 know where we were going but it turned out to be a children鈥檚 home on the outskirts of Brighton. We were put into separate houses when we got there and were given our only possessions, sponge bag, flannel, toothbrush and toothpaste (Gibbs block).

In one big room at the home were iron shelters with mattresses underneath and when the siren went we had to stop whatever we were doing and run as fast as we could to this room and get down on the mattresses. Of course at that age we thought it was great fun. We had a bit of a scare though one day when a plane crashed right next to our playground. I was then taken from there and billeted with a lady at Kirby Malzead for a while. I can鈥檛 remember how long I was there but I then went to a home with other children at Kirby Fleetham and went to the local school. I don鈥檛 have very happy memories of that time because the Sunderland evacuees came down to join us and they made our lives a misery. They also brought nits with them. We dreaded Saturday mornings when we would have to sit at long tables covered in newspaper while we combed the nits out. I can still hear to this day the sound of them hitting the paper we were so infested. I shall never forget either the smell of carbolic soup which they used for our hair and baths. Just after the Sunderland evacuees went back we were told they were looking for other homes for us. My welfare officer, Miss Roberts took me to two spinster ladies at Hutton-Le-Hole where I would spend the three happiest years of my life. There was another girl in the village called Isobel Kinnain and when I became friendly with her she said she didn鈥檛 know if she had any brothers or sisters and she had come from the East of London. I told her in the previous home there had been an Edward Kinnain. She mentioned it to the welfare officer and found that he was indeed her brother and he came to see her.

One day a man in uniform turned up, I didn鈥檛 know who he was but was told he鈥檚 your father. He wanted to take me for a visit to my Grandmothers he said. I didn鈥檛 know my grandmother either so it was all a bit scary to me and I wasn鈥檛 at all sure I wanted to go. However I went with him but was so frightened I wouldn鈥檛 speak or eat, just cried all the time. A couple of days later two boys were brought to the house and I was told that they were my brothers and that they were going abroad in a few days time. We didn鈥檛 know one another so didn鈥檛 speak, just eyed each other suspiciously. They were sent to Fairbridge Memorial College in Rhodesia supposedly to learn farming but as I learned later through reading books didn鈥檛 have a very happy time at all. The youngest brother stayed in the home as he was a bit backward apparently. I was taken back to Yorkshire until the end of the war. It ws then I was told that my mother was dead and that I was to go and live with my father and step mother. So we never did live as a happy family and in fact ended up spread across the world, never knowing family bonds or relationships as happened to so many people during the war

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