大象传媒

My father was not in the forces but worked for an oil company which transferred from London to Beaconsfield in Bucks. Father used to stay there during the week and come home to Orpington at weekends. We all moved to that area at the beginning of 1940.
We had a nice house between Penn and Hazlemere. Just a few yards along the road the Canadian soldiers were based. My parents used to entertain a couple of them to Sunday lunch quite often. We grew our own vegetables and kept chicken and rabbits to supplement the rations. It never occurred to us children to worry that we were eating animals that recently had been roaming in our back garden 鈥� we just accepted it. When the time came to have an animal killed my father would call on an old man along the road who would 鈥渄ispatch鈥� the said animal. One morning my father answered a knock at the door; a small boy of about eight years old stood there. 鈥淵es鈥� said my father 鈥淲hat can I do for you young man?鈥� 鈥淚鈥檝e come to do yer chicken Mister鈥� he said and went to the chicken run and wrung the poor creature鈥檚 neck without more ado. We also had plenty of eggs from our hens 鈥� when they laid. I remember keeping newly hatched chicks in a box in the kitchen to keep them warm 鈥� and disaster when father allowed a neighbour to put some chicks he had bought in with ours 鈥� they were diseased and all ours had to be destroyed.
There was a fish and chip shop in Hazlemere 鈥� they never knew what fish might be delivered. The news would go around that there was fish coming and a queue quickly formed 鈥� you may get a piece of cod or a Dover sole. In fact if anyone saw a queue they would join it on the assumption that it would be something worth having.
In many ways our childhood was idyllic. Although Canadian soldiers were based in the field a few hundred yards away, apart from seeing the searchlights when it was dark it really didn鈥檛 affect us very much. There was a gate from the back garden into the field and we would go out with my father before breakfast to collect mushrooms. The other side of the field was a stile into the beech wood. To this day I have never seen such a variety of coloured toadstools. This beautiful area was our playground. The other side of the road Blackberry Lane led to fields where cows grazed amongst buttercups and daisies. Then over the stile, across the common to Penn Green. On the green was the bank; the bank itself was downstairs and the manager and his family, who became good friends of ours, lived upstairs. The other side of the green was a shop that sold clothing, materials, etc. where I was always fascinated as the money was put into its little container and sent along a wire to the little office where it was checked and then the change sent back.
The grocer was also at Penn, where mother would give an order and father would pick it up in the car. We were lucky that we had a car. My father had a car to travel to his office 鈥� which was a beautiful country house in Beaconsfield. (In the summer when it was hot the secretaries would sit outside and work). Presumably he was allowed extra petrol because of the work he did. Because we had a car were able to have days out to the river at Bourne End and Burnham Beaches.
We had holidays by the river at Marlow and Cookham, but we also had two holidays by the sea. We went to Woolacombe one year and to Paignton. A long train journey and on one of the trips I remember having to stop at Reading because there was an air raid. Mother had to pack all the clothes we would need in a trunk that was sent to our destination a week before we went. What excitement and anticipation as we watched her pack things between layers of carefully saved tissue paper. My grandmother knitted us swimsuits 鈥� the first time we wore them we came out of the sea and they were down to our knees! Whilst in Woolacombe 鈥� joy oh joy 鈥� there was a little bakers and we were able to buy a lovely (!) fruit cake. It was a family joke for years afterwards that it was so hard that even the seagulls wouldn鈥檛 eat it!
My uncle was in Australia and every so often there was great excitement when a food parcel arrived. My little sister Rosalie and I loved the chocolate that had gone white because it had gone through the tropics 鈥� it still tasted delicious. Housewives became adept at making tasty meals out of substitute ingredients 鈥� my mother made a lovely chocolate cake using liquid paraffin! Father came home with some bananas one day 鈥� was quite upset when we didn鈥檛 like them 鈥� but we certainly liked the tin of Smiths crisps 鈥� lots of packs, all with the little blue packet of salt. I think Dad must have known someone who knew someone who new someone鈥�.!.
We went to school in High Wycombe and took our gas masks with us but in all the time we were at Penn we only went under the stairs twice because there was an air raid warning and once a doodlebug landed in a field a couple of miles away.

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