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Therese Carter was a ballet student in London during the war. She lived in St Paul’s Cray, a village outside London (near Orpington); she commuted into London everyday to go to lessons. The train journey should have only taken half and hour, but bombs caused delays and often it took longer than an hour.

Her mother was an invalid and her father was in the wine trade. The wine trade was poor during the war, as there were no imports. Her mother and father were evacuated to Christchurch. She can remember going to visit her parents. They would encourage her to leave London and go to a ballet school in Christchurch instead; but she would refuse to leave London, she had a half scholarship.

St Paul’s Cray was in the area that was nicknamed ‘Bomb Alley’. Mrs Carter remembers that the nights were bad. She used to hope for a moonlit night, as the bombers wouldn’t be sent over if the sky was clear. They had a shelter, to go to during air raids, but it was too claustrophobic, her and her sister would sit in the corridor instead; the walls around them would hopefully protect them if any bombs were dropped. Her sister was a senior secretary in a solicitors firm, in London.

Their family grew a lot of their food during the war; they also kept hens and chickens. She can remember creating merry hell one day when she noticed her favourite chicken ‘Blackie’ had gone missing, he father told her that they had had Blackie for dinner. The family managed on what they had.

She recalls that the war was ‘highly unpleasant, one never got used to it, but learned to live with it and preyed that it wouldn’t go on for much longer.’ Towards the end of the war she could tell that the end was near, the bombings became less frequent. The radio kept them informed of what was happening, even though they knew that a lot of the news was propaganda the news was comforting.

After the war she became a ballet teacher for several years. She gave up teaching when she had children, two sons. She still carried on taking part in ballet classes until a few years ago. Mrs Carter has never been bored.

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