大象传媒

This is one of the stories collected on the 25th October 2003 at the CSV's Make a Difference Day held at 大象传媒 Manchester. The story was typed and entered on to the site by a CSV volunteer with kind permission of Conny Dean.

GROWING UP IN A WORLD AT WAR

When my twin brothers were born I was nine. I had already been evacuated
because of the war. My younger sister and I were taken to Mobberly my mother
after two months insisted we returned. 鈥淚f one stays we all stay if one goes
we all goes鈥� She said. So from there on we spent most of the bombing raids
since under a table in our kitchen. The day my two baby brothers arrived
things changed and my father decided we should follow the Home Guards advice
and go to the Air Raid Shelter.
It proved to be good advice as within weeks our house was
destroyed in a bombing raid. We returned from the Air Raid Shelter to find
the house as rubble and men from the Home Guard moving bricks. They thought
we were still in the house! My father hadn鈥檛 told anyone of his change of
heart.
Everything was lost clothes, toys, the stove鈥� everything even the
kitchen table. I had to wear second hand clothes but I refused until a nice
man told me they had been Shirley Temple鈥檚! We were in shock but their was
no time for pity and off we went to Wythenshawe.
I remember at this time going to the cinema and seeing the Pathe
News. It had the three w鈥檚 WENDELL, WILKIE and WINSTON (the three ministers)
and then it said WE WILL WIN. I never forgot this and it gave me confidence.
Even though I was only nine I firmly believed these men when they said we鈥檇
win.
Mum liked the idea of Wythenshawe. It was called the Garden city! But
she never got the welcome she deserved when we turned up with nothing and
five children from Hume. I had to go back to Hume each week to collect our
rations as our ration book was for Hume this was one of my jobs during the
war.
The day war ended we had a huge street party. I was fourteen and at
the end of the war I got a job hand sewing for a Tailor.
I still even now have panic attacks if I hear sirens or if there is
something on the T.V that takes me back. I recently went down to a war
museum in Cornwall and it made all the memories flood back鈥�..horrible.
I just pray war never happens again!

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