大象传媒

I was born in 1938, and when the war started, my father joined the Special Police-force, up in Liverpool.My elder brother and sister, Kath and Tony were evacuated to Wales. So to all intents and purposes I was treated as an only child. Although I visited my brother and sister in Wales at one time, I don't recall them growing up. I do remember my brother going to Singapore on National Service, and letters from him were eagerly awaited. He once sent me a parcel of plastic foreign toys - great rejoicing!

Bombs: If the air raid siren went off when we were on the way to school, we were supposed to carry on to school. However, I used to run all the way back home, very fast indeed; somehow that seemed safer. If the sirens went off at night ( most common) we all had to get up and go to our 'shelter'. Our next door neighbours on both sides of us also came down. We lived in a first-floor mews flat, over a taxi garage, and our shelter was one of the inspection pits in the floor of the garage. Once we were in there, the floorplanks were put in and we were in complete and total darkness.As a child, I couldn't understand how this was safe, as I thought that if the house was bombed and flattened, we would be buried and no-one would know we were there. As an adult, I still think I was right!

A friend of my parents lived with us, Charlie - and as he worked very late ( in the 'west end' at an Oyster Bar called Bentleys in Swallow Street off Regent Street)he could never be bothered to get up and come down into the pits, and stayed upstairs in bed, sleeping through everything. This worried my mother ( and therefore me). However, I soon realised that not everyone in the mews came down to the pits - so maybe some adults felt as I did...

I learned that the dangerous bombs (according to child folk-lore)were not the ones that stopped overhead - because they then dived down ahead of you, but the ones that you heard stop BEHIND you - well, watch out, because they'd dive down on US. Our nearest bomb dropped about 2 miles away, near Kensington High Street. I longed to go and see the results, but that was not allowed.It occupied my mind for a very long time; I often went to saturday morning pictures in Kensington High Street. (6d a time - or 2 and 1/2p.)

I also recall the gypsies, or travellers, who moved into lodgings (between our home and my school, in Princedale Road)in the winter - I wonder, now, what did they do in the summer in the wartime? They used to keep their lovely big old horse in the front part of their house, an old open shop front, where it survived quite happily until they went off again in Spring.They were exciting and fascinating; their children knew lots of interesting things!

My other childhood memories are piecemeal - the lack of men around, rationing ( no bananas - what were they? no ice-cream or sweets, or chocolate.) Charlie would occasionally bring home seafood from Bentleys - we must be the only wartime family that had either fresh crab or lobster for sunday lunch! I wondered what my brother and sister were doing - and envied them ( a mistake, I think.)

My impressions of what feelings prevailed were - anger at the germans, and fear - an all-pervading fear, especially from my mother. My father also had a terrible head injury when he was in the Special police, so his absence and illness contributed to the family separation and lack of certainty.

A final memory is a street party! The mews was laid out with tables all down the middle, and there was jelly - what a luxury - and lots of sandwiches, and lots of loud laughing, balloons and games. The other point that stands out in my memory is the importance of the King and Queen and the two Royal Princesses. - a simpler time than now, perhaps?

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