大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War Site by Ruth Jeavons for Three Counties Action, on behalf of Doris Langston, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

My husband Maurice was in the war when I was expecting my first baby. A bomb fell and got stuck under fence of the house next door and we had to leave home. It didn鈥檛 explode. We lost our cat Mickey, but my husband found him eventually.

I lived in Acton all during the war. We had to go to stay in Chiswick where my in-laws lived. We had to carry a great box around everywhere with a gas mask inside. I used to say, 鈥淧lease God, don鈥檛 let me have to put the gas mask on baby鈥�. Luckily I never had to.

We were in Acton Green when my waters broke. It was the shock of my husband鈥檚 call-up papers arriving that did it. Baby Rita was born one month early, on 16 January 1941. My husband called an ambulance and the nurse came upstairs (we lived in a first floor flat) and they took me away in the ambulance to Park Royal Hospital. The nurse had left her helmet behind and my husband had to walk all the way back to the hospital with it the same night in the snow and the dark to return it. It was a beautiful moonlit night and the ground was frozen. He did that journey three times that night. It was a long way. When Rita was born I had to stay in hospital three weeks as I had a shocking cold.

My husband was a panel beater working on guns, and we thought it was a reserved occupation, so we were shocked when he got the call up papers. He鈥檇 always been in the Boys鈥� Brigade. I was in the Girls鈥� Brigade. That鈥檚 how we met. He was two months under 23 years old. He was away 5陆 years in France, Germany and Belgium. He came back, praise the Lord.

I used to make cakes and send them off to him. I鈥檇 boil up marrow bones for the fat and use that for the cakes. I did a lot of cooking 鈥� powdered eggs and sugar. It was very hard bringing up a child. She got pneumonia at six weeks old and I kept her in a hooded basket cot in a recess on the kitchen dresser and we kept the fire going all night.

My youngest brother Fred was in the home guard and he used to come in to see us. Once we heard a bomb whizzing down from a German plane. I threw myself over the cot and Fred threw himself over us both. It missed the bridge it was aiming at in Acton Lane and didn鈥檛 stop the railway. I hate war films, also sirens.

Buzz bombs were terrible. The first land mine fell at Acton. My husband was stationed at Osterley Park at first. He told me, 鈥淚f you don鈥檛 hear from me for a while I鈥檒l have gone [overseas].鈥� He couldn鈥檛 say where he was going as it would be to the front line and a secret. So the first I heard of it was from the radio. My husband Maurice is a Methodist lay preacher. It was our faith that kept us going. I鈥檓 89 now 鈥� born 23 March 1916.

I had another baby, a boy, David Maurice, born on 28 January 1945 a month early like Rita. He lives in the USA now. My husband missed our first two children鈥檚 early upbringing. Then 11 years later, I had my third child, Joanne a daughter and the first to be brought up by both parents.

I hated the war. We had a lovely Victory Party though, borrowing the tables and chairs from the church hall. It was a family road 鈥� all uncles and aunts and every one knew each other. My eldest brother did the music; he also made our first radio. I dressed up Rita (aged 5 陆 at the time) in red, white and blue. She won first prize.

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