大象传媒

As my stories are rather long, I am splitting them into several separate stories.

Story 1.
Story 1 of 7 stories..At home before the war, then sent to Worthing.

In July 1939 I was a happy little girl enjoying her 8th birthday party, on the 27th July, 1939, living with my parents at St. Cloud Road, WestNorwood, SE London. In those days there was plenty of room to play in the street , and I had lots of friends. The streets were quiet, empty of cars, and safe. There were a dozen or more children that were my friends, and we used to dash home from school, and in the evenings and at weekends, in all weathers, we came out and played in St. Dennis's Road. Our house was on a hill, directly opposite this road, so our parents always had a view of us. This was our playground, our club, and my joy. We would all stretch a rope across the road, and play skipping, queuing up to take turns. We would play guessing games, called "Filmstars" or ball games, "Hot Rice", played with a softball; or in the Autumn, whip and top, and marbles. Another game we played was "Cannon", where you had to get 4 wooden dolly pegs, line three of them up and place one on top. Then you split into two teams, and the first team had to try to get to "home" and knock the pegs down with a tennis ball. Then the trick was to replace them back, without being hit with the ball by the other team. This meant running about and a great deal of excitement. I was given a "Saturday penny", my pocket money for the week. We had the Walls Ice Lolly men come around on tricycles, with frozen boxes on them, wearing blue and white chequered uniforms, and a sign on the front saying "Stop me and Buy One". The Indian Toffee man also came around sometimes, selling spun sugar, which we thought was amazing. I could buy a farthing Golliwog Toffee bar, 4 for one penny. Indoors, I never missed Childrens Hour on the wireless at 5 o'clock, with Dennis McCullock reading "Toytown", with Mr. Growser, The Policeman, and Larry the Lamb. And on Saturday nights, we were allowed to have our bath, then stay up to 9 o.clock to hear"In Town Tonight", with its rousing signature tune, which I now know was "Knightsbridge March" by Eric Coates, unforgettable. The first indication I had that war had broken out, a week later, was the intense interest my parents paid to the wireless; plus, one day the Council men arrived with several large, silver shiny curved sheets of corrugated iron, which they dumped in the garden. My brother Brian and I thought it was fun sliding down these, which were meant to be the roof of the shelter, dug at the bottom of our garden. Then, in no time at all, we were told that we would be going on a sort of holiday, and we would enjoy it. This was called evacuation. At school, we had gas mask drill, learning how to put the gas mask on and off. I shall always remember the strong smell of rubber, as our breath expelled air out of the sides, and the bubbly sound it made. We were given duffle bags with a minimum of clothing in, our gas masks in a box, which we must carry at all times, and our name ticket, attached to our coats. Then the whole school were put on a train, and off we went. "where are we going mum?" we called, as she waved goodbye. "well, you will find out when you get there, its a surprise" she said. And that was the last I saw of my schoolfriends for years, because when we arrived we were all split up.

The war had taken everyone by surprise. Husbands had been dragged away from wives, incomes had fallen overnight as men left, quite often, well paid jobs, and been conscripted into the Army creating a very low income. Blackout curtains had to be fixed in every home, rations were imposed, and the country was told that everyone MUST accept evacuee children into their homes. Looking back, I can see it must have been hard for some of them to accept. But at the time. we kids knew nothing of all this, we started off thinking it was great fun and very exciting as we were shepherded into a school hall in Worthing, and sorted out. Brian, my brother and I were then billeted into our first home.

Worthing

The first place we were put was a spacious corner house with Pampas grass growing in the front, in Worthing, belonging to two wealthy elderly sisters, who never actually met us, but lived in another part of the house, we never saw them. They had employed a professional Nanny to care for us, who met us all dressed up in a blue Nanny uniform, very official, which we thought was hilarious! We were given a green baize table to write home to our parents every Sunday, and told to behave ourselves. We were very good children (we thought so)...but "helpful"...; so, when I noticed loads of green apples in the orchard, which was tended by a gardener, I said to my brother "Brian, lets help him, and pick them, and put them in the greenhouse to ripen and get red, he will be pleased". So we did; placing each apple carefully in a row in the greenhouse. When the gardener found out, to our hurt feelings of astonishment, he was furious. So that was that. We were passed on to another elderly...(well, she must have been about 40, but we thought she was old)lady, whose excuse, very soon after we arrived was that "my husband is coming home on leave and will need the space", so naturally, we were moved on somewhere else. This time it was a very poor family. The first thing I remember seeing when we arrived was bunches of browning bananas on their doorstep, probably a gift from an admirer. Because when we came into the house, it smelt quite strongly of liquor. Beer and wine bottles were laying behind doors and in crannies everywhere, it was the first time I had smelt drink, ever, and two young ladies in tight perspiring see-through black dresses were having fun with young men..this I remember clearly. I don't think they used deodorant in those days. The sleeping arrangements there were that Brian and I, and two other boys from another family (one wet the bed,, so I was told) should all sleep together in a double bed. As soon as I realised this, I made a big fuss and point-blank REFUSED to be bedded with these boys. So the girls found an old straw mattress, which they laid on the floor. Very soon I was covered in prickles and bites. Thankfully, my mother, while visiting me soon after, discovered flea bites all overme, and holding up her hands in horror, whisked us away after that, and marched us to the Evacuation Officer demanding a decent home for us. So now we found ourselves in the home of a good and kindly woman, Mrs. Lucas, and life was good. At Christmas, we had a huge Christmas tree; and Mrs. Lucas knitted me a two piece dress in red wool, cable stich, which lifted my spirits, it was very smart; and these memories seem to identify the time as Christmas, 1939. Everyone was singing the song "We're going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line, have you any dirty washing mother dear". There were Table Games, where you had to cross the Siegfried Line to win...I always thought it was a washing line then, and could never work out why so much notice was taken of a washing line! We stayed happily with Mrs. Lucas for around 3 months I suppose; but my mother, missing us, as no bombing had yet started,brought us back home to London.

Back to Londfon the first time.

In all this time, and for the rest of the war, education went out of the window. The disruption in people's lives meant that all the male teachers had gone off to war, and all that was left was little girl trainees, or older people brought out of retirement, and most of them were engaged in war activities, one way or another. No time to teach LCC children properly, or take any trouble with them; sufficient, I suppose, get them all into school and count heads,for Registration. We were just handed out Maths text books in the mornings; and, in Worthing, I did Raffia work in the afternoons. My teaching was so curtailed and unconnected that I never made head or tail of anything much. So I just used to grab a book, and read it under the deski. I think I realised that the grown-ups had lost control, as N0-one checked on me, or even noticed. Then, I tried to adapt to the various homes, sniffing like a little dog on entering one, to see if I liked the smell or not. I became highly sensitised to people and environments, and still have a well-developed sense of smell!

Wales

After this, my mother made up her mind to evacuate us again. She had been in touch with her old friend in Penarth, S.Wales,and had arranged for us to be sent there. I had been on holiday to my Auntie Jessie's before, so this was familiar territory to me. I had to cycle through a couple of fields to get to school, and in the second field, I would always stop and gaze at the ATS girsl, as they winched the Barrage Balloons up and down, It was fascinating to see the Balloons slowly inflate, then imposingly rise slowly into the sky, like huge silver Elephants. The way it worked was that the tautening of the thick cables supporting them was meant to prevent the German planes from getting too low over the countryside, as there had been incidents of machine gunning of civilians in Wales. The German planes were supposed to become entangled inthe cables and dive to their destruction, if they got too low. I was made to carry, as well as my gas mas, a steel helmet, to cycle to school, and told to dive into the nearest ditch if I heard an aeroplane coming, and keep my head down. In Wales, I slept in a Morrison Shelter, a heavy-duty steel construction built indoors, in the bungalow bedroom - a bit like a giant matchbox into which you crept nightly as a matter of course. I learnt Welsh, and enjoyed singing a lot at school. But again, no sooner settled nicely in, than my mother brought us home again.

Back to London for the 2nd time.

By now, all my friends were evacuated, so noone to talk to or play with. The school was only about l/3 full,and the streets were like a ghost town; so empty of people that a sort of eirie silence reigned everywhere.It had a spooky, strange atmosphere, like the stillness before a storm and I was lonely, and longed for normal life to be resumed. But then the air raids started, and it all made sense. Continued on another page...""Air Raids"

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