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I recall my school being evacuated to Sittingbourne and my parents coming to visit me on a Jewish Holiday when I was playing rugby! They were shocked and took me back home.

I recall being evacuated to Wales and staying in Tylers Town with my Aunt Molvern and Uncle Arthur who was a doctor in the Rhonda Valley. They had 2 sons who were 2 and 6 years younger than me. They lived in this huge, huge house and when they finished lunch a procession would take place from the dining room, my Aunt leading the women, then the men, and lastly my Uncle. The house was in fact falling to pieces, but I recall my Aunt spending a small fortune on a fireplace in the lounge. I also recall them taking in two of my second cousins from Germany and bringing them up, paying for their education. I decided not to stay in Wales and I hitched a series of lifts from Wales across England to my parents’ home in Chatham. I was about 12 years old. The journey took 21/2 days, and I slept out, wherever I was, and I was pretty hungry. Later I was taken back to Wales and stayed a few months. By then my Uncle was away in the Army in India.

I recall, during the Battle of Britain, my mother going to London to buy costume jewellery for their shop, and getting lost in the East End, which was being blown up at the time. I remember going to look for her walking down streets which were changing in shape as the bombs dropped. Of course, I recall my sister getting married in Brixton, which was the second day of doodlebugs and every few minutes everyone got on the floor as the noise of a doodlebug stopped until there was an explosion and then everyone got up again. When the Minister (Rabbi Swift — later becoming a Dayan) arrived he was covered in dust, his house having just been blown up. I also recall being in my uncle’s shop in New Cross where, a 100 yards further on was a big Woolworths which received a direct hit from a rocket and many people were killed. You heard the sound of the rocket after it had landed and exploded!

My father was a Chief Inspector in the Special Constabulary and was very proud of it. My mother was a pretty typical Jewish mother who always imagined that I was starving. My sister, 41/2 years older than me, was always my protector and would go to war at the slightest provocation if she felt I was in trouble. When she was 18, she went to work in the Dockyard.

I guess we were pretty typical of a family at war.

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