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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by a London CSV volunteer on behalf of Audrey Demer and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Although it was a small village we rarely saw our brothers as they lived at one end of the village and we were at the other end, and when they finished school they worked on the farm. James only stayed two years as when he was 14 he had to go home. Bernard who was younger had to stay on but he was very happy with farm life and the people he lived with were very kind. We did see them at church where Bernard sang in the choir but we only said hello to them.

Every night I prayed not to wet the bed and asked God to make me a good person. In the same prayer I asked him please could he make Mrs Taylor die that night and I would never do another thing wrong in my life. So much for the good little girl. Edna was kinder than I was as she prayed to lose her legs and/or arms so she could be sent home. There were no recollections of any happy days during our time with Mrs Taylor.

I think we were living with her for about two years then off we walked with our little bundles of clothes, gas masks and cardboard nametags to the other end of the village to live with Mrs Harris. Mr Harris was away at war, we only saw him a few times when he came home on leave, and he was a very kind and gentle person. They had a daughter younger than me named Christine who was mentally ‘backward’. She had a continuous cold and would wipe her nose on anything that came to hand. Inside the street door hung a dark curtain to keep out the draught and the whole of it was covered with glistening snot.

The house consisted of one room downstairs and one upstairs with a curtain across to separate two beds. Mrs Harris and Christine shared one bed with Edna and me in the other bed. Above this room was a tiny attic where sacks of apples were kept to ripen. We would crawl up to eat the apples — cores, pips and stalks so as not to leave any evidence.

Every day we had to attend church and also clean it. School and church were a pleasure to me as they were the places of safety. There was no water or electricity supply at the house so Edna (8½ years) and myself (7) had to carry a large pail to the well approximately a quarter of a mile away, pump water into the pail (bucket) and try to carry it back without spilling the water. As there were two pails all this had to be done twice. The downstairs room had a gas mantle to give light but I cannot recall any lights upstairs. The toilet was reached by walking down a path in the garden and consisted of a deep hole dug into the ground around which wood had been put to make a lavatory seat. It was scary to go to the toilet as it was very dark there and I was always worried the faeces would reach my bottom.

Again after school and at weekends we would wander around for miles on our own. Each year the hunt started from the village green. It was a lovely picture postcard sight of the horse riders in their Hunting Pinks but when the bugle sounded and the ‘tally ho’, Edna and I would race across fields to try to head off the fox so the hounds wouldn’t catch it. On one walk we came across a dead sheep, it had run against the barbwire and was frozen stiff so we took our coats off and tried to bring it back to life.

Chapter 3: www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/a5706100
Chapter 5: www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/a5706191

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