大象传媒

In early 1944, my parents decided that my sister and I should be moved from London to the Hampshire countryside, despite the fact we'd weathered the blitz in London.

So, we were packed off to the village of Overton,to live with some distant relations who we had never met before. It was not a particularly happy time. We were both very homesick; I was thirteen and Rosemary ten, and the trauma of relocating to a village school where we were the only "outsiders" was unforgettable. To add to the difficulties, the relations were not a happy family, as both husband and wife drank too much, rowed a lot, and our life was uncomfortable, to say the least.

We both made the effort to avoid the house as much as possible, and used to go for very long walks. No-one seemed to worry we weren't at home, but our parents would have been horrified had they known we were away for hours.

Before D-Day large concentrations of troops, mostly Americans, were moved into temporary camps not far from Overton, and Rosemary and I used to walk to the nearest to see these men from outer space! They were part of a tank battalion, and they too hadn't come across English children before either. They showed us photographs of their families and, like manna from Heaven, fed us fruit and chocolate.

I don't think either of us understood the enormity of the situation. The troops were just there, and their presence was fun, far better than our temporary home life.

Then, one day, we happily left home to go to the camp. They'd gone overnight! Nothing was left, no rubbish or tents, only tank tracks in the mud under the trees. Again, we were totally dumfounded. It was like the end of a marvellous dream.

A couple of days later, we heard the allies had landed in France, and immediately realised where our friends had gone.

A few days later, one of the boys at school told me we should go to Basingstoke Station if we could get away. He wouldn't say why, but showed me chocolate which had melted in his pocket. "There's all sorts of other things," he said, mysterously.

The following Saturday morning my sister and I used our pocket money to go from Overton to Basingstoke. I suppose it was a sign of the times that no adult asked us why two young children were buying train tickets and travelling on their own, but no-one did for the several weeks of our regular outings.

On Basingstoke Station there was a mob of children waiting on one platform. We joined them and, within half an hour, a train drew in and stopped. It was full of injured American troops, being transferred to hospitals in England, and Basingstoke was the rail centre from whence trains could me directed to other parts of the country.

We must have been the first contact they had with children since they'd left France, and their generosity was incredible! We were given all kinds of food they couldn't eat themselves, and there seemed to be an endless supply of fruit, ration packs, all kinds of chocolate and sweets, a veritable child's delight!

And there were American cigarettes as well.
No-one seemed to care that we should be given packets of Camel, Marlborough, and many other makes, but we soon discovered the power of barter! For some reason or other they craved for milk, and we used to carry bottles from home (which was never missed!) and exchanged for cartons of fags, which, in turn, were carried back to Overton and sold at the back doors of the pubs!

For nearly a month we had a share in the black market, until the trains didn't arrive anymore. It wasn't long after this we returned to London, our parents suddenly realising that things weren't right at Overton.

It wasn't long after this that the first flying bombs arrived in the suburbs.

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