大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Andy Walker and has been added to the website on behalf of Maureen Melvin with her permission and she fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I lived in North London with my parents, and was at Duncombe Road School 鈥� I was 9 years old when the war broke out, and my parents didn鈥檛 want me to be evacuated. One morning in September 1939 I went to the school as usual and found the school shut and the gates locked. There were several of us there, and we had to go home. My mother asked 鈥淲hat are you doing here?鈥� She was very cross as she hadn鈥檛 been told the school would be shut after most of the pupils had been evacuated. Mum thought the school would stay open, but many of the teachers had been called up. She complained about the situation by storming County Hall!

After several weeks, as I was coming up to 11 plus and wanted to go to grammar school, education was organised for me. A group of 6 children met each day with a teacher at different people鈥檚 houses, sitting round the biggest table we could find.

I passed my 11 plus in 1941 and should have joined Camden School for Girls, but the Green Flies had been evacuated to Grantham. Because I wasn鈥檛 evacuated I went to an emergency grammar school 鈥� Parliament Hill. Pupils wore the uniforms of the schools they should have been at. Mine was green, but there were also children in blue and grey.

We adopted a ship at the Grammar School, and spent all our spare time knitting balaclavas, mittens and long socks for the troops, khaki for the army and different blues for the army and navy 鈥� my speciality was socks! The captain of the ship sent along the youngest sailor to thank us for our knitwear. The bell rang and he had to get up in front of the whole school 鈥� he wasn鈥檛 much older than some of us girls. We were very upset when we heard he had been killed later in the war in an accident.

We used to watch the British plans flying out over London in formation, and used to count them out and back again. We could soon see if a plane was missing from the formation. If one went down in France, another plane would fly down low to find the site of the crash and if possible verify if the crew were alright. If they were, they were often back in England after a couple of days, rescued by the Maquis. A member of the French Resistance used to come to the school to tell us what was happening in France 鈥� we never knew his name, as all he gave us was a pseudonym.

Friday night was bath night at home. The bath hung on a rusty nail in the coal cellar and was filled with hot water on a Friday. My parents and I took it in turns to use the water first! The question was, would we get the bath in before the bombing started.

One night I was in the bath and I the sound of gunfire got louder and louder. I got out quick and went under the stairs wrapped in a towel. After a bit we could hear the cat miaowing 鈥� Tibby had fallen into the bath! Mother had to wait till a lull in the Blitz to fish him out!

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