大象传媒

In July 1944, my mother was evacuated, taking me and my brother, from Morden in Surrey. I was 7 at the time. I recall we were put up in a school in Redcar for a cvouple of days, sleeping on the floor of the school hall. Eventually, accommodation was found for us at 2x, Haymore Street, Middlesbrough. The road had seen better times and we lasted there only a few days because we'd stroked the dog and seen fleas jumping about on it, which promptly took up new lodgings with us! Our enforced departure came about as the result of my telling some of the neighbouring children that our hostess had fleas! It did us a favour, however, because we were then given a flat in a block of flats in 38, The Avenue, Middlesbrough. These had been left unfinished at the start of war, but had been finished off with the end of the war approaching and evacuees needs. I always recall one of the other evacuees was a girl whose pigtails I pulled from time to time. Isn't that what they were for?

We eventually returned to Morden towards the end of September 1944. We must have gone North because the V1 doodlebugs had started falling not long before, but we came back just as the V2's started coming over - I suspect that my mother had had enough of being away from home and husband!

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