大象传媒

My older brother had been taken to Ireland by an aunt to stay with our grandparents until after I was born. I felt like an only child until my sister was born, then I felt like an eldest child.

My father just disappeared, (as fathers did, into the services) to service and drive ambulances and jeeps.
He was considered too old to fight, but he was a good motor mechanic
He came home on leave when he could, sometimes getting a lift from Yorkshire to London at short notice, consequently we didn't always know when he was coming.
No mobile phones then!
I remember him arriving home unexpectedly very early in the war.
He was dressed in uniform with a cap, which hid his face. I didn't recognise him coming up the stairs, he reached out to pick me up.
I screamed blue murder!
It must have been hard - he'd travelled two hundred miles to see his wife and baby - and to get such a welcome.
Confusing for me too, who really wanted him to come home.

Another time he arrived in the middle of the night and let himself in.
He was trying to move quietly so that he wouldn't wake up the whole house but my mother recently had a spell of moving our furniture around, he didn't know where he was.
He fell over everything and succeeded in waking everyone up after all.
Not a very good welcome home that time either.

I don't remember the air raids early in the war but I know my mother took my sister and me to an air raid shelter near a pub. I think we must have gone there early and settled down for the night.
This must have continued for some time, apparently I used to talk to a tramp at night.
Each week he gave me 6d, (2 1/2p) for chatting to him.
I can't really remember much about this.
The air raids I do remember though especially during 1944.

By then my mother had two more children. That made four of us under six, not counting my brother in Ireland. We lived upstairs in a large house, which we shared with other people.
A very elderly lady lived downstairs. She was disabled and lived alone, consequently she was allocated a Morrison shelter, which was built, in her bedroom. It had an upper deck, like two bunk beds pushed together with a roof. She shared it with us.
We went to bed upstairs to our own bedroom every night, and when the siren sounded our mother got us up and, the new baby in one arm and my one year old sister in the other, pushing my three year old sister and I down the stairs in front of her to the old lady's bedroom.
We all got into the upper part of the shelter and settled down together for the rest of the night.
The old lady, of course, was already there.
I was aware of the grown-ups being afraid which made me afraid too but I loved us all cuddling up together. It must have been dreadful for the adults who understood what was happening. People could hear but had no way of knowing where the bombs were falling.
Next day, of course, the only way you'd know if your relatives or friends were safe would be to go and find out!
We had lots of relatives around North London, mum must have been thinking about them but it would have been very difficult to check every one out each morning if it meant filling a pram up with babies and young children, and setting off on foot. Mostly, I guess, people just waited for the good or the bad news.

I remember some food shortages, and things like dried egg and milk.
Not very nice but when you're hungry you don't complain too much.

My grandmother visited us from Ireland after one of my sisters was born and brought us eggs, butter and a chicken with her. There was great excitement, everyone talking and admiring the baby.
While the grownups were busy, I was exploring the bags of food. I picked up an egg and was looking at it, sniffing it. And I dropped it.
I was in big trouble, food like this was so scarce so I tried to push it under the mat on the floor, hoping they wouldn't count the eggs in the bag and realise one was missing.
I got caught trying to hide it and, needless to say all the grown-ups joined in telling me off good and proper!
When fresh eggs were available, I think the ration was one a week, but after my father was invalided out of the army he was entitled to an egg a day. Needless to say, we children received the benefit of that piece of good fortune.
I also remember my mother pushing the pram with two in it, my sister and I holding on to the sides as she walked about four miles because a neighbour had called in to tell her that a shop had bananas. When fresh fruit like that was available, people told each other, and often walked long distances in the hope of getting some, even though they knew perfectly well that the shop might have sold out before they reached it.

I remember grown-ups laughing.
There must have been so much worry and sadness that I didn't know anything about, but I do remember the laughing, a lot, and for decades afterwards when they got together and started talking about the past, they'd remember the same funny things that happened, and the laughing would start again.

Liz Hegarty

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