大象传媒

Part two of an edited oral history interview with Mrs. Anne Misselke (n茅e Alexandre) conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum.

鈥淪o we went on the train and it went on and on and of course going through the countryside, it was nice to see the countryside. Suddenly we saw these huge, big things that looked like big pieces of wood on the side of the railway line and it said in big white 鈥� there was a lovely picture of trees and fields and a river and cows sitting - and in big white letters 鈥榊ou are in the Strong Country鈥�. We said to our teacher, 鈥榃hat鈥檚 that?鈥� Because she was sitting in our carriage, 鈥極h鈥� she said, 鈥業 don鈥檛 know.鈥� A little bit further on and another one 鈥� 鈥榊ou are leaving the Strong Country鈥�. And the noise of the train on the rails and then another one 鈥� 鈥榊ou have left the Strong Country鈥�. We kept saying, 鈥榃ell, what can that be?鈥� She said, 鈥業 just do not know.鈥� And it wasn鈥檛 until years after I鈥檇 got married and went to live in Hampshire that I discovered that that was an advert for beer! To my recollection, I cannot remember and I鈥檝e got a terribly good memory and I can remember everything that happened but I don鈥檛 think there was a picture of a glass of beer on there. So anyway we began to get very hungry because of course we鈥檇 eaten our sandwiches on the boat and eventually the train stopped at a very big station with a very wide platform. On that platform were lots of ladies with trolleys loaded up with tea urns and milk and water and sandwiches and sausage rolls and cakes. Then the senior girls and boys got out and the teachers got out and passed everything thing through and we all had a good tea. Then eventually a big loud voice said, 鈥楬as everybody had enough to eat and drink?鈥� 鈥榊es!鈥� 鈥楨verybody in,鈥� we all got in again and we waved goodbye to the ladies and off the train steamed again. I mean it was a corridor train but there was nowhere to get food, we could go to the lavatory on the train. But anyway the teacher then said, 鈥楴ow children you must be very, very tired because you鈥檝e had a very long day. You鈥檝e got to try to get to sleep where you are sitting.鈥� You could hear the sound of the train and it lulled you into a sort of a sleep. And eventually the train stopped and a big loud voice said, 鈥楨verybody OUT!鈥� So we all got out and we formed into lines again and we were on this platform and we had to go down the steps and along a tunnel, turn left at the bottom of the steps along the tunnel and we came out along a road. There was a hill going up and there was a big high brick wall there and another one there so there was only one way out and it was up the hill.

All the way down this hill was a fleet of black taxis waiting and the road was made of little square cobblestones. My friends and I were the first children out of the tunnel, so they said, 鈥業nto there, children.鈥� So we got in this taxi and it turned round at the bottom and up the hill, along the road and then it ended up outside this lovely building, I鈥檇 been taught to appreciate buildings because my dad was a builder. It was a white Portland stone building and it had sort of things with pillars at the top and then there were pillars at the front. We didn鈥檛 go to the front we went up the side to another entrance that also had some pillars and some steps and standing on those steps were some ladies. Then when the car stopped they came running down the steps and I happened to be the first child out of the car and one lady said to me, 鈥楬ello, dear鈥� so I said, 鈥榟ello.鈥� She said, 鈥楢nd what is your name, dear?鈥� So I said, 鈥楢nne Alexandre鈥� and she said, 鈥榓nd how old are you dear?鈥� So I said, 鈥楾en鈥� whereupon she looked at the lady next to her and she put her hand on her shoulder and she said, 鈥榦h, thank goodness they do speak English!鈥� This was at Stockport Town Hall. They said, 鈥楥ome along in children鈥� - they were rather posh Stockport ladies - 鈥榗ome along in children.鈥� So we went in, into this beautiful big hall, I can see it now 鈥� it had big black and white stone flooring. Then there was a beautiful stone staircase going up there with a stone balustrade. If you looked up you could see doors and a walk way going around like that but in front of us were these big doors and they were opened and it was a great big room with a stage at one end and the curtains were open. Just as you went in here there was an area with red curtains around it and you could hear babies crying and mothers whispering so that was obviously for mothers and babies. All down this big hall were camp beds in rows, head to head, here and there a chair and little walkways between each, all the way down the centre 鈥� this was Stockport Town Hall Ballroom you see. There was nothing on the stage.
So we all assembled and they showed us where our bed would be then they said, 鈥楴ow just sit down on your beds, children until everybody is in.鈥� Then when we all got in they said, 鈥楴ow then children, it鈥檚 half past five in the morning and you鈥檝e had a very, very long day. We鈥檒l show you where the toilets are, you can go to the toilet, wash your hands and face and come down again and lie on your beds with your clothes on and then we鈥檒l wake you up when it鈥檚 time for breakfast. So they took us up this stone staircase to show us where the toilets where and we all washed our hands and faces and we went back down again and lay on our beds and of course we were really tired so we did go off to sleep. Then they woke us up about eight o鈥檆lock and then they said, 鈥楴ow, come along, we鈥檒l show you where you can have your breakfast.鈥� Halfway in this Ballroom there were some more fairly big double doors and we walked down a wide corridor to another big room, not as big as the Ballroom but it was a big room. In this room there was a big long table all down one side. There was a tea urn, I think there was a portable vat of porridge it seems to me, lots of bread and butter, milk, tea for the teachers and of course hard boiled eggs and that was our breakfast, while we were in Stockport Town Hall that was the same breakfast every morning. And every night when you were sitting on your bed in your pyjamas they would come round with a trolley and they would come up very close to each child and say, 鈥楬ave you been today?鈥� And if you said, 鈥榥o鈥� they gave you a dose of Syrup of Figs so we very soon learnt to say that we had been, even if we hadn鈥檛!

There was a room upstairs, up this lovely stone staircase and along the corridor, there was a room there with a lot more clothes. So we all would take it in turns, about four or five of us to go in at one time to find something else and the ladies, these very nice ladies would be helping. One day I was looking for another dress and this very nice lady who鈥檇 welcomed me, they鈥檇 got to know our names of course and she said to me, 鈥橠id you have to come through the Mediterranean to get here, Anne?鈥� But in the daytime we would go out with our teachers in little groups and we found the swing park, we found the library, we found the Art Gallery, we went to the town and we loved the market. We all had pocket money in our purses and of course we could buy things like cherries, well I hadn鈥檛 ever tasted cherries, I don鈥檛 know if anybody grows them in Guernsey but I鈥檇 never tasted fresh cherries only tinned ones. A lot of us hadn鈥檛 and of course we would buy a pennyworth of cherries, oh, that was lovely. In the market they had this wonderful machine - we used to stand in awe looking at it. It was glass sided and there was something bubbling inside there and suddenly it would make a sort of plopping, gulping noise and this mechanical arm would come out and drop in bits of dough. They would go round and another one until it was full of these things bubbling and going round in these bubbles and suddenly another mechanical arm would lift one out and put it onto sugar paper outside and that was an American doughnut machine. There was a lady there who, with a pair of tongs, would turn it over and then of course she would sell them. Of course we鈥檇 never seen that so we would buy cherries and American doughnuts. It was a nice market. There was an outside market and a covered market. I don鈥檛 really know how many days I was in Stockport Town Hall. And of course one by one various children would start coughing or they would develop spots or whatever. So when the first one got a few spots and a cough they moved the bed of that child onto the stage and drew the curtains. Of course one by one more children did get coughs and things.

Anyway, eventually one Saturday afternoon we were all inside, I don鈥檛 know what we were doing, but anyway there was an announcement over the sort of tannoy system, 鈥榃ould Anne Alexandre please go to the office.鈥� So I thought, oh I鈥檝e been a naughty girl, what have I done? Anyway, I went up there to the office and there was standing a very nice little round faced smiling gentleman with his wife and two children. He said to me, 鈥楬ello Anne, do you remember me? I鈥檓 your mum鈥檚 cousin, Cyril!鈥� He said, 鈥楧o you remember I came on holiday to stay with your grandma with uncle Tom?鈥� Well I knew uncle Tom because he was my grandmother鈥檚 brother and he used to come nearly every year with somebody or another, usually his wife auntie Flo but I know he had brought his sons once or twice. So I didn鈥檛 really remember Cyril. He said, 鈥榃e don鈥檛 know where your mummy is but I鈥檝e come to take you to live with us until I find where your mummy is.鈥� Now he really was my mother鈥檚 cousin and he was a secretary at the Manchester Education Department and he knew that lots of Channel Islands schools and people were around the Manchester area. He had been doing absolutely sterling work for the family because he鈥檇 already found my mother鈥檚 cousin Mollie who had come over with her two small children and she was in a church hall not too far away, I didn鈥檛 know she was near me. Her husband Len, who had come on the very last boat with a lot of men was in another church hall with just men and they didn鈥檛 know and Cyril had got them together.

Then another cousin of mine, Josie who was a bit younger than me, she must have been six or seven I think by then, she was with the 鈥榣ittle ones鈥� she hadn鈥檛 come up into the 鈥榖ig鈥� school yet and they were in another hall. Cyril had taken Josie up to her step sister Kathy in Beverley so he really was working hard for the family. So of course I had to pack my little suitcase and off I went with Cyril and his wife Doris and their two children Marjorie and Ralph. On the Monday I went to school with Marjorie. I don鈥檛 know what time of June maybe it was towards the end of June but anyway I went to school with Marjorie until the end of term. Then we went on a little holiday with Cyril鈥檚 brother Roland and his wife and little boy, Michael. We had two holiday cottages near Rhyl in Wales and we had a wonderful week. It was lovely because we children would just get up from the breakfast table, run over the dunes and we were on the beach. So we had a lovely time. On the way back, as we were driving back Cyril said, 鈥榊our mummy is coming to fetch you on Monday Anne so when we get back home we鈥檝e got to get you ready.鈥� Sure enough my mother came to fetch me.

My parents had left on a boat with my grandpa Alexandre and it was a wood boat with very limited accommodation because they had decided that they would go to my mother鈥檚 other brother, Jack. He had been invalided out of the Army being stone deaf. He had been a young soldier, from the age of 16 I think but he had been invalided out when he 26 I believe. He and his wife had taken the managership of a pub on Salisbury Plain. At the beginning of the war he had said to many relations, wherever they where in Guernsey or London, wherever 鈥� if you are ever bombed out or need anywhere 鈥� come to us because we have got plenty of rooms. It was one of these big old pubs with rooms. So they had decided that they would go to Jack鈥檚. So they went to Jack鈥檚 and my mum鈥檚 sister Dulcie, she was there as well with her little boy Michael. Every day my dad would go out within a 20 mile radius of Salisbury to try to find work and there was nothing. Of course in Guernsey they didn鈥檛 have these cards that they had to have for the Labour Exchange in those days, they didn鈥檛 have anything like that in Guernsey you see. Of course that was why he couldn鈥檛 get a job but he didn鈥檛 really know that. But anyway he used to help Jack in the bar in the evenings and after a couple of weeks some chaps where there in the bar and they said to my dad, 鈥榃ell you want to go up to Coventry Jim if you haven鈥檛 found work. Coventry is safe as houses it鈥檚 in the centre of England the Germans will never get there. There is loads of work. You can work in a factory doing your war effort. Ruth can help you and what not.鈥� So they decided they would go to Coventry for the day. Auntie Dulcie had said to them, 鈥業f you can find a house big enough for all of us I will stay at home and look after grandpa, the children and the house and get the food ready and you and Jim can get a job doing your war effort.鈥� So that鈥檚 what they looked for. They both found jobs. My mum was going to work for Marconi, I think it was Marconi, building radios, I鈥檝e forgotten what my father did. Then they went to the estate agent and they found a nice furnished house and they went back to Salisbury and of course then they packed up everything and off they went. They were settled in this house when she came to fetch me.鈥�

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