大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War Site by Three Counties Action, on behalf of Pat Crockford, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Where we were first evacuated to in Wales, the daughter made my life hell. I was a pretty blonde child and a pierce defender of my little brother David. I insisted that we stay together. My brazen behaviour in speaking out added to my sins, it was unheard of in the 鈥淏illie Black鈥� times for a nine year old girl. My Mum was doing a milk round in London, my Dad was a shoe repairer with poor eyesight that barred him from his wish to be a near gunner in the R.A.F. So it was Aunty Flo who came and saw my burnt fingers and my sawn off haircut. She created merry hell and we moved to a mining community in County Durham, the miners cottage was tiny. The roads and front yard were ash from the tip. The wash house and the toilet were out in the front yard and the houses were identical street after street. We loved it there, we played in the street pushing the ash into piles to define the different rooms, we learnt how to swim in a black pool on the side of a slag heap (the adults didn鈥檛 know this of course). We experienced a mining disaster. The bedroom that David and I shared measured about 6X9 and we bathed in a tin bath most nights, the coal black, quiet, sweet natured miner took his bath after us with just a little hot water to ease his tired body. We missed our Mum and Dad but Aunty Flo and her husband Johnny came to see us three or four times a year.

My Mum only visited us once.

Four and a half years is a long time to be away from your parents and I don鈥檛 think I ever managed to regain those lost years of my childhood.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.