大象传媒

A little girl growing up in Kent

The teddy bear incident

Family tradition has it that I started the war, although I was only one year old! I was sitting in my pram on the front at Bognor Regis in August 1939. Beside my pram was another pram. The little boy in it was German and our parents were talking together. Apparently the German baby nicked my teddy and I hit him. A month later war was declared! It would be six years, and I would be a grown up seven year old, before I experienced a seaside holiday again.

Living just outside Maidstone in Kent, the War was the environment that formulated my early years, and the experience has influenced my whole life.

During the first war my father had served in Mesopotamia with the Royal Artillery, West Kent Regiment. By 1939 he was married with 3 children, of which I was the youngest. Although he was in a 'reserved occupation' he again enlisted as a volunteer, returning to his old regiment. As my mother said, ". . . . if he hadn't gone back he would have been fighting the war from our sitting room and I would have known all about it!"

A soldier Daddy

As a small child I accepted life as it came. Daddy spent most of the war years on East Coast Command at Gorleston training gunners but he was frequently talked about. My mother spent most evenings writing to him. For my part I kissed his photo goodnight every evening and enjoyed the "bunny" postcards that he sent me at regular intervals. I still have them.

Homeless puppies
For some of the time during those war years I slept in the big double bed with my mother, but when Daddy came home on leave I had to move out, which I thought was unfair, commenting "Why can't he sleep in the other room!" I remember clearly going to the station in Maidstone to meet him when he came on leave, bringing his heavy leather suitcases, and on two occasions a puppy, born in camp and needing a home. The cases made a sort of triangular pen which I peered into while Daddy gave us all hugs. One puppy was returned, because Mummy said she didn't want a dog. It was killed on the road, so she reluctantly she agreed to keep the next puppy, Heinz (because the puppies in the litter were all different). Heinz would be a family member full of character for the next 12 years.

The man in uniform
To a small child the distinctive feature of a soldier father is the uniform - except all soldiers wore uniform! On one occasion while Daddy was on leave we visited the small local zoo. I left go of his hand and ran to see the next animals. I returned to the army uniform and grasped the soldier's hand, but immediately there was a whistle from behind. I'd got the wrong soldier! I had grasped the hand of a surprised soldier making the most of his brief leave with his girl friend.

Sweets out of reach
When Daddy came on leave we always prepared for him with excitement. With my sister, six years older than me, I would visit Miss Twart's sweet shop to use precious tokens to buy some of Daddy's favourite sweets for him, sugared jellies. Sometimes as special customers we would come home with a packet of Smith's Crisps too. But why did Daddy always put his sweets on the high mantelpiece where I couldn't reach them? I thought it was deliberate policy, but years later discovered it was not!

So this man, Daddy, was mostly away from home during my young childhood, but I was frequently reminded that I was a soldier's daughter and I shouldn't cry, which I was very prone to do. I think I would have cried a lot whether or not there had been a war!

The War - a daily fact of life

For me the war experience was all I knew. We lived on the Ashford Road, Bearsted, on the A20 linking London with the coast at Folkestone. My mother had decided against evacuation, much to the concern of her friends and neighbours. Her philosophy was that she wanted to keep things as normal as possible for us all.

So it was that I grew up accepting rationing, blackout, sirens, air raids, cracked and falling ceilings, all clears, the dull drone of planes overhead at night and occasionally, the nippy spitfires which sometimes seemed to almost touch the roof of our semi-detached house. I learned that aeroplanes often fell out of the sky.

Convoys
Convoys regularly passed the house heading for the coast. My part of the war effort was to stand on the front gate and wave to the soldiers as they passed by. I often ponder the fact that many of those soldiers will not have returned, and wonder how they viewed my childish wave. I had nightmares of being run over by a convoy and crawling under those large dark lorries with their big wheels as they rumbled overhead.

Community
There was a great sense of community in the road and people were frequently coming in and out. I had many unrelated aunts and accepted the fact of the shortage of men around, being more likely to challenge those who were around as to why they were not away at war!

I remember being fitted for my gas mask and being asked by 'Uncle' Norman, our local air raid warden if it fitted snugly. I didn't know but said, "Yes" and for years I had it on my little conscience that perhaps I should have said, "No".

Generally for me life was relaxed; we had a big garden and I was too young to help with the garden chores for which my brother and sister were enlisted. The garden kept us well fed with fruit, vegetable and eggs and the occasional broiled chicken. My friends came to play and sometimes we played in the dugout with it's four bunks, four because Daddy was away.

Things I knew were different
While most things just seemed normal to me, there were things that I was told were because of the war; the car parked in the garage that never went out; the lack of bananas and ice cream which I saw in pictures but never experienced; my sister's left off clothes hanging in the wardrobe waiting for me to be big enough to wear. Similarly there was the fairy cycle hanging in the shed till I was big enough to learn to ride it.

My teenage brother and his friends

Our house was very much an open house and among those who regularly were around were my teenage brother and his two friends. I watched them from a safe distance and admired them so much. I remember them storming through the house to the bedroom window to try to get a view of Detling Aerodrome when it was hit, and them imitating Battle of Britain dog fights with appropriate arm movements and noises.

Then there were the strange things they did in the shed. Only later did I understand that they went up onto the Downs and collected anything 'interesting', which they should not have done! On one occasion they brought back an unexploded shell which they proceeded to defuse successfully! But that is another story!

The first doodle bug

I remember the occasion clearly. I was sharing the double bed in the back bedroom with my big sister. It was dark, but the curtains were open. We were not asleep. For some reason my mother came into the bedroom and looked out of the window. She saw a distant light moving across the night sky, but could hear nothing. She called to my brother in a haunting voice, different from her usual confident tone, "John, come and look at this. What is it?" They stood at the window as my sister and I lay still in bed. We listened to their discussion. The siren hadn't gone, what might it be? My brother had heard that the Germans might be developing a new weapon. Perhaps this was it.

We had an aunt staying with us and she was having a bath at the time. "Florrie," my mother called "I would get out of that bath, there's something strange happening our there." "I'm not hurrying my bath for Jerry," was my Aunt's defiant reply, so typical of the war spirit of the time.

In the morning the sighting was confirmed and the war moved into a new phase. We became used to watching doodle bugs pass overhead wondering where they would come down. Another aunt used to come to our house regularly on a Wednesday afternoon when the shop where she worked had early closing. She did jobs for my mother, often cutting the front hedge; I remember her pausing with shears pointing upwards watching the doodle bug pass by; calm yet alert and getting on with life.

But everything could be made fun of and I remember my brother making a doodle bug out of my plasticine, putting a lighted match in the end and throwing it across the kitchen. It hit the tiles and went out!

My mother, the stability of my war years and early childhood

The war meant changes for my mother. My father had been the head of the house and my mother a typical pre war wife. But she definitely had the task of keeping the home fires burning. With a weak heart she had to manage three children aged one to ten at the start of the war, and maintain and cultivate a half an acre garden. While there were times when she struggled and was thankful for the help of relatives and friends, she became a confident and capable woman, as did many others of her generation.

Constancy - her philosophy about the war
She was concerned that we should live as normal lives as possible and should not be woken to go into the shelter if it wasn't necessary. We slept in different parts of the house at different times, because she was concerned that if the house was hit some of us might survive to be there when my father came home from war. She never seemed to doubt that he would. To me as a little girl she always seemed in control and was there for me.

Faith that God was in control
Mummy's Christian faith was a significant fact. She believed in prayer and the power of God to speak into situations. So it was that only twice did she feel we should use the shelter and only on those occasions did bombs fall relatively near to our house. On another occasion a neighbour was looking after us children while she went into Maidstone to do some shopping. She had hardly reached town when she felt a voice saying to her, "Go home." Somewhat amazed she caught the next bus home and discovered that an unexploded bomb had been discovered and the road was being evacuated. Another time, having been told by the doctor that she should rest, she went home and prayed about what seemed an impossible situation. Within minutes her prayer had been answered when a stranger phoned somewhat apologetically to say she had a 'girl' who needed a job for a couple of months and wondered whether with three children my mother could use her.

But to me she was just Mummy, there to comfort or scold and to remind me that I was a soldier's daughter so not to cry!

All change! Learning to live after the war

I have the certificate with the king's signature that was given to all children when victory was celebrated in 1946. I remember being confused at what it meant that the war was over. Wartime conditions which I had accepted as normal changed. I was surprised that ceilings no longer cracked and fell down. And I expected news bulletins to stop. What would there be to report?! Commodities not available during the war gradually reappeared. Eventually I was introduced to bananas and ice cream. I remember my first mouthful of both; a tiny share which was hardly enough to taste.

Daddy home form the war
Most significantly Daddy came home to find his once submissive wife now capable of being fully in control, a situation which caused readjustment for them both. For my brother his army officer father was not always appreciative of the behaviour of his teenage son. My sister as always was submissive and helpful.

But for me, I learned what it was really like to be a soldier's daughter; greatly loved yet not spoilt; disciplined but also encouraged; taken seriously but also kept in my place.

A life moulding experience
World War Two was my war. It influenced me and my generation in many ways; ways which built character, perseverance and hope; ways which focussed on service and mutual support; ways which have made me proud to be British. In today's world, sixty years on, how can children learn these things?

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