大象传媒

Margaret Sullivan

Margaret cannot remember the First World War as she was born at the end of it in 1918, but she can certainly tell a tale about the second one.
Born Margaret Malvaney into a musical family she joined the choir at St. Ann's Catholic Church at the age of 9, joining her father a baritone and her older sister a soprano. With this experience behind her it was no surprise that she became very popular entertaining the locals and service men during the Blitz. Her daytime job was working for Keillers, the fruit people, but by night she was one of the regular "turns" at the Custom House Working Men's Club playing the piano and singing the popular songs of the day. She was a hit with all the servicemen especially the lads from HMS Maori who used to do the traditional dance of the New Zealand tribe. Some of the other acts were a young girl on a piano accordian and a feller who played the drums, but her favourite was a gentleman with whom she used to sing the Indian Love Call. IF ANY OF YOU OUT THERE REMEMBER THEM PLEASE GET IN TOUCH.....
One day whilst surrounded by sailors her sister ran in to tell her her boyfriend was home on leave and was heading this way. He was not amused.

Margaret had some very close calls during the daytime raids. One she remembers clearly is, whilst working at Keillers, they were expecting a truck delivery on Saturday September 7 1940 but they got a phone call to say that the truck was delayed until the following week. So all the staff were sent home. This turned out to be good thing because the next day a bomb wiped the whole place out. Another occasion, the sirens went and she was handing the baby to her sister who always sheltered in the outsdie loo. When a bomb fell across the road the blast threw her into the toilet on top of them both. The neighbours sadly were all killed but luckily they were fine.

Her job gone at Keillers she missed the rush to work across the swing bridge. She remembers the little Cockney fat bloke who worked it, waiting for them to almost get there then opening it so that they were late for work.
She found another job working for the ministry of labour in Freemasons Road that lasted for four years. There she interviewed young women for the various occupations available, e.g the land army, the WAAFS and the WRENS but of course for the latter you needed a good education. This job finished at the end of the war when the men came home to reclaim their jobs.

Margaret recalls so many incidents of the time -the first doodle bug falling while she was on fire watch. She remembers the funny sound and the flames from it and yelling at the ack-ack boys to "GO GET 'EM LADS". Or the time she was on board HMS Shearwater when it was in dry dock for repair and the siren went, so she had to stay on board whilst the ship went into action and only left when the all clear went.

Having been bombed out so many times there were three families living in one house, her mum, Mrs Malvaney, her sister Mrs McBreary and Mrs Sullivan's. The postman used to say it was like delivering to a branch of the IRA.

Margaret is no stranger to the limelight and was once on PATHE NEWS and in the local papers as May Queen at the APOLLO. She still plays piano once a month at St. Ann's Catholic Church just to keep her hand in.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.