大象传媒

BETTY HUDSON lived 10 miles south of Birmingham where her mother was an evacuee billeting officer. As her mother was billeting other children, she thought she had better take one herself, but it wasn't a happy baby 鈥� 鈥渁ll it did was cry鈥� so her mother moved it to another lodging to be with other children.

Betty鈥檚 father was a special constable. He went out to look at a bomb, and when he returned her mother asked him if he was OK as he had a bandaged arm. He thought he was injured because, when he went into a ditch to avoid the bombing, he got a thorn in his elbow... and therefore not a lot of sympathy.

He had to sit by the phone in the police station for emergency calls, and mother sat there too, knitting stockings on a machine, which she also used to knit socks for Betty鈥檚 brother when he went to school. Once when her brother was cycling home from school he had to hide in a ditch, because there was a plane dog-fight over his head.

Her father went on to become a contractor for farm machinery in the American machinery lease-lend scheme. Betty also remembers one of her school friends (Anne Stirch) who went into the forces and then to Bletchley Park on secret work. During school holidays she went potato picking with her friends. She also remembers a story about French orphans during the war who walked from Caen to Angers. This has now been made into a book and has possibly been filmed by the Americans.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.