大象传媒

Throughout the war notices at bus and rail stations read, 鈥淚s your journey really necessary?鈥� Civilians were not encouraged to travel. Nevertheless, during 1941 when I was serving as a nurse at St. George鈥檚 Hospital in London I needed to take a train to Hull to visit my sister who was seriously ill. My sister- in- law asked me to take her seven- year- old son, Christopher, as ordinary holidays were impossible. I met him and his mother at King鈥檚 Cross Station in good time for the train. We put our cases on two seats to book our places in the compartment, and then went to have a coffee. Twenty minutes before the train was due to leave we emerged from the caf茅, only to see the train slowly receding away from us!

Christopher broke the horrified silence by commenting, 鈥淢y sandwiches are on that train!鈥� We protested to a guard and he agreed the train had left too soon, but said we should hurry to the next platform as that train was also going to Hull. We rushed round and there it was- every seat taken. People standing all along the corridors, in the individual compartments, and even in the toilets. I found a door open and pushed Christopher in front of me saying 鈥淚鈥檓 sorry, but we must get on!鈥� Then I squeezed in myself and shut the door quickly.

Soon we were off on that tedious extraordinary journey. We stopped at so many stations that it took seven hours altogether. We stood the whole way with nothing to eat, and only one drink each. We watched the country go by, and Christopher found it very interesting. Indeed it may have been his first real train journey. After several hours of silence he suddenly said, 鈥淚鈥檝e got some Maltesers in my pocket.鈥� 鈥淭hen bring them out for Heaven鈥檚 sake!鈥� I said, and so we shared them out slowly. We arrived at last, safe and unharmed, but with no luggage. That went all round England, and came back to us four weeks later.

This story was entered on the People鈥檚 War Website by Stuart Ross on behalf of Margaret Sherlock Dunkley. Margaret fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

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