大象传媒

Once again my schooling was interrupted. The school was bombed and the Prosser Library, dining room, VIth form rooms and part of the Hall were destroyed. I spent my days playing on the moor with a boy, John Buss, whose Mother had been killed in the bombing and who was evacuated and billeted with the people who owned the house where my Uncle and Aunt had rented rooms. We lit fires, and roasted potatoes, explored the moor and the local area. For a while I didn't do any school work, but I kept up my music lessons after my parents enrolled me privately with the Music Master of Wellington College, a well-known boys' school. I used to cycle to the College, which wasn't far away, one afternoon a week. I practised on the piano at our rooms. Mr Pottage's daughter, though a rather strange lady in some ways, could play quite well. When we were at the Ashford bungalow, I had practised on the piano at our gardener's brother's cottage.
Not far away from where we lived was Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum ( as it was called then). The grounds sloped down to a lane and were surrounded by a very high wall. However, because of the slope, the inmates could sometimes be seen from the lane pacing the grounds. One, I remember, went back and forth, back and forth, along a short path wearing a black cloak. Some of the more sane ones tended the gardens and vegetable plots.
At Christmas the inmates (the less deranged ones) staged a show to which the public was admitted. They painted the scenery and produced the costumes and the show was really very good. There were plenty of warders around, and I remember that I had to leave early to go to a music lesson - (the show was a matinee)-and I had to go with a Warder to be 'let out', as several doors along the corridors were locked. If an inmate escaped ( a rare event) a siren would sound warning the neighbourhood so that children could be kept in until the man was caught.
During the time at Crowthorne, we, or sometimes only my Father, would go up by car to London to check on our house, and to visit what were left of the Butcher's shops he and my Uncle owned. 7 out of the 14 were bombed, and either badly damaged or totally destroyed. My Father had a 陆 gallon of extra petrol a month for keeping an essential trade going, and so that we could harvest the crops from Ashford.
By this time the daylight raids had lessened. One day we all drove across to the East End. Street after street was devastated. We drove across firemen's hoses, still snaking across the streets, and past ruined buildings, still smoking and smouldering. Eventually my Father stopped the car in a scarcely recognisable street in Stepney. My Mother asked 'why have you stopped here?' 'This is the Stepney shop', he replied. What was left of it was leaning drunkenly next to the badly damaged public house. Little remained of much of the rest of the street but rubble and the pathetic remains of household goods and children's toys.
Even if the shop had been serviceable, there were no people left in the area to require meat. Those that had survived had been taken elsewhere'
During our periods at home, I had regularly helped in the Acton Hospital Dispensary on Saturday mornings as a Guide and a Sea Ranger. My tasks were to wash medicine bottles, run errands to the wards to deliver drugs and to count out tablets into bottles for patients' prescriptions.
For this 'war work' I received, for 2 years running, the Girl Guide 'War Service award 1941 and 1942 (a cloth badge with a crown and the date)
In May 1943 the war in North Africa finally ended and Japanese troops were being driven steadily from territory they had over-run. Things were at last looking a little less bleak for the Western allies.
In London in 1944, we had, since June, been faced with the flying bombs, the V1's or 'doodle-bugs'. The first one came over on June 12. They were pilotless planes full of high explosive with tails of fire streaming behind. Once the engine cut out all you could do was wait, and count 10 till the thing crashed and exploded.
My parents and I sought once more what we hoped would be the comparative safety of our Ashford bungalow. However, this turned out to be little safer than Acton. Sometimes we were running all round the bottom field or the garden trying to decide in which direction the bomb would fall, so that we would be as far away as possible. One night we heard one droning over and dashed out of the bungalow in the middle of the night when it sounded very near. It fell on the Cottage Hospital less than a 录 mile away. Fortunately, though there were some casualties, none was fatal.
I had been asleep when my parents woke me. I dashed out with them trying to put on shoes at the top of the steps. The next I knew, I was lying at the bottom of them. My Mother was blown half under the bungalow by one of its brick pillar, and my Father was flattened against a nearby tree with the blast.
By this time another room had been added at right angles to the main room, which I now used as my bedroom, and the garden lavatory now had a cistern and a proper flushing system.
After some frightening days and more sleepless nights, we set off once more into Berkshire. This time, instead of renting rooms in Crowthorne, where my Aunt and Uncle and cousin still were, we found rooms in a flat over the post office in Sandhurst village. Here we felt a little safer and caught up on some much needed sleep.

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