大象传媒

NOW WE ARE AT WAR

The house we were billeted in had little comfort for Joan and I. Other than a bed and cupboard our bedroom had no furniture, no electric light, no heating and bare boards with many boxes, which stored vegetables. When the winter came we would go to bed freezing cold and the woman would not hear of us using a hot water bottle, which I was used to, she said that it would give us chilblains. That was the first time in my life that I had chilblains on my feet!
My mother sent me a large bar of Cadburys chocolate, unheard of luxury, and Joan and I used to break off two squares every night when we went to bed, not too good for our teeth. Remember, we were in the dark, and when we lay in our cold bed we could hear rustling noises but having no experience of mice we did not think of them. When we looked next day, to our horror most of the chocolate had gone, there must have been an army of mice!
We had no bathroom in London but my mother would fill a large zinc bath in the scullery for a weekly bath. In our billet we had no bathroom and we were unable to bath at all.. We used to wash in a lean-to shed attached to the kitchen, which was freezing cold in the winter. Our face flannels had icicles on them in the mornings and we were given a bowl of luke warm water to wash ourselves.
With no supervision you can imagine how well we washed and our teacher soon noticed that we were looking pretty dirty and scruffy. When asked about our billet we explained what it was like and were soon moved to a more suitable house.
Going back to the puppy, the poor thing was run over and the woman was not concerned, so Joan and I carried him, he was quite heavy by now, for about a mile to a P.D.S.A. caravan where they cleaned, stitched and bandaged his leg. We did this twice a week until the wound healed. At least the dog was glad we were there. The P.D.S.A. did not charge us anything and we called them The Poor Dog鈥檚 Salvation Army.
During the very cold winter of 1939 Joan and I would be sent out at weekends to amuse ourselves. On one occasion we joined other evacuees exploring Newhaven and found some large ponds covered in ice. Little knowing how deep and dangerous they were we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves sliding on them and none of us came to any harm. Our mothers` would have had a fit.
Another time we all climbed the hills that overlooked the harbour and saw huge ships, three of them were painted white with red crosses on their sides. It made us feel very sad.
Later, our teachers told us that we would be moving to Seaford, a few miles along the coast and Joan and I managed to stay together. We were put with a very nice lady but unfortunately she was terrified of England being invaded; her husband worked at the Foreign Office so perhaps that was why. During the night she would tell us the invasion had started and we were to put on our best clothes and sit with her under the stairs. Provisions were kept there to keep us going during the invasion, tins of food, saucepans of water, blankets and candles etc. You can imagine that all this made us very nervous; we thought a German would walk in at any moment.
During our stay in Sussex we had virtually no schooling. We used village halls, which were very cold, and had no books, no desks, in fact no nothing. The teachers read stories to us and did their best. It must have been very difficult for them. We leant to knit, first scarves then gloves, socks and Pixie hoods.
It was now April 1940, and once again our school was moving, this time to Wales. I did not like this idea and wanted to return to London. I had permission from both the school and my parents and prepared to go home.
I was put on a bus to Brighton with an accumulation of things acquired during my stay; my case, gas mask, parcels and bags. When we reached Brighton the conductor helped me off and there I had to stay, I could not carry everything. I was supposed to meet my mother at the railway station but thankfully she came looking for me and we went off to catch the train. The newsboys were calling out 鈥淏elgium capitulated, Belgium fallen鈥�. My mother said, 鈥淭his is a fine time to be coming back to London鈥�.
It was bliss to be back in my own home with mum, dad and Tiny, who was ecstatic to see me. Since I went away an air raid shelter had been built in our yard, it was brick with a flat roof and no door.
Back to school to proper lessons again and if we could run home within three minutes then we should do so if the air-raid warning went. I was able to do this.
The news at this time was pretty grim. Poland had been invaded, Russia attacked Finland and now Hitler invaded Norway and Holland and to cap it all Italy joined forces with Germany.
In June 1940, Germany marched into France and France too collapsed. Every conceivable boat that could sail from England evacuated thousands of British troops from the beaches at Dunkirk. It was a miracle that so many came home, my sister鈥檚 husband was one of them. We were now very vulnerable and all feared invasion/ Mr. Churchill made stirring speeches to the nation saying 鈥渨e would never surrender鈥� and offering us nothing but 鈥渂lood, sweat and tears鈥�.
It was in September that London was bombed for 76 nights in succession, we called it the blitz. We spent night after night in our shelter with dad in the doorway shouting 鈥渂illow鈥� every6 time he heard a bomb coming, we all ducked.

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The guns on Clapham Common burst into action every night, they were deafening. Dad said they had no hope of shooting down planes as they were naval guns, they sounded like two tin trays being bashed together. Somehow we managed to sleep.

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