大象传媒

It was a shock, and an unsettling one, to find ourselves alone and with people we had never met before. Worse was the fact that, unlike the earlier time in Great Baddow when Mum was with us, we did not know when, or scarily, if we would see our parents again.

There was one happy aspect from the start. Mrs Ashwell, our surrogate wartime mother, had been in service as a cook. Not only did she know how to get the best out of wartime food rations but she also had various sources of extras such as eggs, rabbits and chickens 鈥� plus we soon learned about things like blackberrying and mushrooming. But first there was the strange experience of seeing milk coming direct from cows 鈥� we were used to nice, clean bottles!

I was also fortunate that the village schoolmaster, Mr Robert Davey, seemed to recognise that I had a good basic grounding and potential to do well. It was largely due to him that in 1941, when the annual 鈥渟cholarship鈥� exam (later to be known as 11+) was due, I managed to do sufficiently well to be placed within the top ten in Northamptonshire. The result was a day school place in Rugby.

So it was that a boy from the northern extremity of the East End of London found himself among boys from a totally different class, many of them speaking with an accent that seemed to set them apart. Moreover, I had to start to learn Latin and French. At the time they seemed irrelevant to someone with my background but the Latin master, Mr Evans, seemed to recognise my bewilderment and, in many ways, became a pastoral support. Later, I was to realise that a grounding in Latin gave a head start when it came to learning Spanish!

Having attended Sunday School with my parents since I was five, I went to St. Mary鈥檚 Church, Barby where I became a choirboy. There are so many memories of that church: the Vicar, Rev R S Mitchison, had served as an officer in the 1914-1918 War and became Captain of the village Home Guard unit. Their regular church parades were a feature 鈥� especially as some of the men in the Choir had joined the Home Guard and would often process in uniform rather than cassock and surplice! I was confirmed in 1942 鈥� mainly because it was conventional for choirboys of my age rather than out of a conscious desire on my own part!

I would mention that Barby Church features in 鈥淭om Browne鈥檚 Schooldays鈥� when Tom ran there in a cross-country race and became exhausted. I knew that feeling in due course.

The war became real there on the night that Coventry was bombed so heavily. Although we were some twenty or more miles away, I remember that we stood outside the cottage and, way across the countryside, we could see the fiery sky and the continuous flashes of explosions accompanied by their noise. And, just on the edge of the village was a strange unit manned by men in the Royal Air Force. It seemed to be a mere collection of different structures where nothing ever seemed to happen. Perhaps it was some kind of decoy? We never did find out.

Early in 1942 a tented prison was constructed for Italian prisoners of war. After a time, some of them went out to work on local farms and not a few remained and settled after the war ended. This coincided with a time of calm in London that gave our parents reason to bring us back from the country to live with them again.

So we returned to a new home in Trumpington Road, Forest Gate just off the edge of Wanstead Flats 鈥� because the house in Woodlands Road had been so badly damaged as a result later bombing.

Malcolm Pettit 鈥� 20-3-1930 to date
Chichester, PO19 5PH

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