大象传媒

I was five when WW2 began. I remember hearing something on the wireless about rationing, and asking my mother what that was. "You'll find out soon enough" she replied, darkly. My main fears were that the Germans would come and steal my favourite doll, Elizabeth, and that I would be parted from my dog, Scottie.

The first bomb I remember fell one afternoon in Hove. I think it was from a stray airplane who was lost and the pilot decided to empty his bomb load before going home. As the bomb crashed to the ground, I was pushed into a cupboard and as I write I can still smell the moth ball scented clothes hanging there. At the time, I thought I would choke and wondered iof this was what 'war' meant.

My family home was in London. My parents had a talent for sending me away from the city to a part of the country just about to be bombed. First, I went to North Wales, in time for Liverpool to be heavily bombed. Then back to London only to be packed off to the Midlands with an aunt, where we shared a flat with another family and where, within a short while, nearby Coventry was flattened.

After a while, in Leamington Spa, it occurred to me that no one had mentioned anything about my dog.When I asked my aunt, all I got was vague mutterings about not asking awkward questions. The other family in the flat had a son called Brian. He and I talked the dog problem over together and we decided the only way I was going to know about dog Scottie was for me to go back to London and find out.

Of course, I had no money, but Brian had an asnwer to that. We went scrumping, with him doing the tree climbing and me underneath collecting the stolen apples, and than both of uss sold them to passers -by. I can't remember how we divided the takings, but, eventually, I had enough for a train ticket to London.

I got up very early one morning, crept into my aunt's bedroom and left her a note to say I was going home. Brian helped me out of his bedroom window and I slithered down the porch roof and ropped onto the doorstep. I can remember walking across some grass which was wet with dew - or was it frost? I carried on to the railway station, bought a ticket and went on to the platform.

The train was literally just coming into sight when there was a loudspeaker announcement. It boomed "Would anyone seeing a small girl on the London-bound platform, please take her to the station-master's office immediately?" Of course, there was onlt one small girl on the platform, and that was me, and I was inside that office within seconds.

There was a terrible fuss. My aunt had woken, seen the note and had hysterics. Brian's mother found out what her son and I had been up to and called the railway station. I was collected and taken back to a weeping aunt whilst my ver angry mother came up from London.I was told off in no uncertain terms, stuff about how dangerous London was, and didn't my family have enough to worry about without me being so naughty.

But there was one thing about the whole episode that I shall always remember and it was this: no one bothered to ask me why I wanted to go to London. If they had, I should have said that I wanted to know where was Scottie - later, I discovered the dog was no more but nobody had the heart to tell me.

I went to ten different schools because of WW2. I spent a night hearing bombs falling all about my home, lying on the floor cuddling my dog. Next morning I went to school with the smell of burning eveywhere and everything familiar had disappeared.I remember the awful school dinners we had, of minced up something-or-other, and lessons interrupted by time in the shelter. But, compared to many others, I did not have too bad a time - apart from when I nearly took the train to London, trying to find out where was Scottie.

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