大象传媒

My mother was a few days short of her 19th birthday when the war started. Her own mother had died a few years before and she kept house for her father. They lived in London but were originally from Wales. The war meant freedom from domesticity for my mother as, whether her father liked it or not, she had to work. She chose munitions war and loved working with so many other young women. In the summer of 1940 she and a friend got sun-stroke after spending their lunch-time on the factory roof. They were threatened with severe consequences if they made themselves ill during war work. My mother had lots of boyfriends including a biker who took part in speedway races at Wimbledon Stadium, and a policeman. Her father fretted a lot about these boyfriends and knew that my mother was encouraging them. My mother was having a "good" war. My mother wanted to marry her speedway ace but he would not ask her. Then he got his marching orders and my mother decided to get pregnant by him to force him to marry her. He did not. He may have gone to Australia to help recruit messenger bikers and he may have died. My mother told the policeman boyfriend that the child was his. My mothers father had remarried and was living with his new wife and her family in Chelsea. My mother could not marry the policeman because he was seperated, but not divorced, from his wife and he had three daughters. So my mother and the policeman lived in sin which was very much frowned down on then. The baby was born in August 1943. They all moved to Fulham as they had been living near Chelsea power station and the Germans were making frequent attempts to bomb it but kept missing and hitting the nearby houses instead. The policeman was suspicious about the paternity of the baby. How could my mother keep the policeman? How could she keep up some sort of respectible front? She got pregnant again, this time definately by the policeman. In the Spring of 1944 a V1 fell very near their home. My mother grabbed her baby and ran but got blown down the stairs and into the front door. She then had to clear up. She got the dust out of what was left of the curtains by washing them as best she could. They had to be rehung because of the blackout. They were hung up damp. The baby caught pneumonia. The baby became even more ill when the new fangled anti-biotics were given to her. At the hospital they found out that my mother was not really married. There she was with one young baby and another on the way. Obviously an incapable slut. The baby was taken away under the emergency rules and put in an evacuation home. The people she went to immediately changed her name and tried to force my mother to sign adoption papers. My mother was heart broken. She had heard that the speedway ace was dead but suspected this was just a story to get rid of her. Now she had lost his baby and was forced to live with a man who not only did she not love but whose baby she was carrying. That baby (me) was born in September 1944. It was rejection at first sight. My mother managed to convince herself that I was being forced on her to replace my sister. By this time my mothers father had disowned her. When I was three months old my mother turned up on her fathers door step with me in her arms. My step-grandmother saw me as a load of skin and bones and chased my mother off. I finished up in a childrens hospital in Tite Street Chelsea more dead than alive. My grandfather went to all the hospitals in the area until he found the one I was in. He told the doctors that my mother had probably poisoned me as she had poisoned her own mother. The nurses in the hospital treated my mother very badly and they enjoyed themselves doing it. My father, the policeman, finally took an interest. A very kind doctor, a voluntary worker, told my parents that my illness was not their fault. This doctor made sure my mother and I were treated better. My parents worshipped this doctor as he did not make judgements and treated me the same as he would have treated the richest child ever. Around February 1945 a V11 dropped very nearby and the hospital was damaged. The doctor was killed. The next day, or maybe a few days later a photo was taken of two, maybe three, rows of nurses all holding a baby each. I am the baby in the second row on the left. The photo was printed in a popular magazine, maybe Picture Post. Suddenly I was liked at the hospital. Suddenly my grandparents took an interest. The photo was shown around to any and everybody. My mother either did not want to take me home or was not allowed to. She was forced to go back to war work. She had had two children but was treated as though she had had none.

VE Day

My mother dropped tools as soon as she heard the war was over. She went off and snatched back her first born daughter. My father said if you can have the "doubtful" one then you must also have the other one.

VE day + 1

I was collected and my own private war had just begun.

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