大象传媒

I was born in Hammersmith, London, and was 2 years old when war started in 1939. My farther was in the territorial army and as such was one of the first young men to be called up for army service, and within a few days of war being declared he was sent to France with the British Expeditionary force, and it was a long time before we saw him again.
When the first of the bombs dropped on London our home was badly damaged, so my father decided through the army to move us out of London to a place called Marholm, near Peterborough, so my grandmother, mother and me were packed up and duly arrived in this tiny village, to live with the village blacksmiths wife, until we could rent a small cottage. This we did, imagine a young women, my mother, from all modern conveniences of the time in London moving on such rural conditions as no running water, no electricity, no transport, no shops, no husband and worrying about relatives left in London. However I thrived in the countryside and my earliest memory was of the warm breath of a huge cow looking hard at me while I was being pushed the long walk to the village shop in a rather large borrowed pram.
I grew up loving the countryside, missing my father terribly and hating the war of which I was very aware, I went to the village school, collected water from the well, some half mile away, helped trim the wick on the oil lamps, emptied chamber pots in the morning in the earth closet across the yard, watched the local home guard practising in our garden, and listened with mother to the radio and lord Haw-Haw warning us we were next to be bombed. Sometimes we made a trip to London to see relatives for special occasions, and I would be first down the Anderson shelter in the garden, with my big teddy bear when the air raid sirens sounded, and lay very scared listening to bombs dropping near by or the sound of enemy air craft flying overhead.
In Marholm, the American air force had arrived, along with chocolate and chewing gum, nylons, which I know mother loved although disapproved. I also had a baby sister who grew up not seeing her father till she was 7 years old. Dad was by this time in the 8th army and with the dessert rats and Monty, fighting his way through North Africa, Sicily, Italy, a very long war, and not seeing his family for four years, thankfully he survived but sadly many of his friends did not.
At last the end of the war came, and the country celebrated, but guess what, on the V.E. day, 8th May 1945, I was in Peterborough hospital having my tonsils out, so I couldn鈥檛 shout HORRAY but my mother had brought me a doll, and I called her Vicky, I was eight years old!

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