大象传媒

I was born in October 1939, and therefore seem an unlikely author of a personal wartime story.

My father had a reserved occupation as a doctor in West Africa in an area where white children were not allowed to reside for health reasons. When my mother's pregnancy was confirmed she came home to England and, although the war had already been declared, my father returned in time for my birth.

I am not sure of the facts or reasoning for what happened next. Certainly one of the factors was a general belief held at that time, that the war would be of short duration. However, at the age of 5 months I was deposited in a children's home in Bournemouth and my parents returned to West Africa.

When it became apparent that Bournemouth was not the safest place in the world arrangements were made for me to be taken over to Canada. So, under personal escort and, no doubt, naval escort, at the age of 10 months I sailed for Canada where I was fostered by a family until January 1942. I have little or no memories of that time, though I have some photos dating from that time. My foster father had at the end of that period joined the Canadian (?) Medical Corps and was already in South Africa. After a series of telegrams it was arranged that Ruth, my foster mother, would take me with her when she travelled to South Africa to be with her husband so that I could be re-united with my mother.

The ship I was on travelled from New York down the East coast of America to the Caribbean and then across to the Cape. Again I have no memory of that journey, but I often look back upon both those long sea journeys and marvel at my survival. I still have my Canadian passport from that time. On it is the picture of what looked like a waif and stray, complete with safety harness and underneath, in the space for signature, the information that the bearer does not write.

My parents had travelled down overland from West Africa to meet me at Cape Town. So, at the age of 2 years 7 months, I was handed over by the only "parent" I knew to a pair of strangers. My mother, who had never bonded with me (from birth to 5 months I had a nurse in attendance) suddenly found herself trying to care for a grief stricken and truculant toddler. I never saw Ruth again.

A house was rented in, I believe, Durban, which my parents shared with another couple for about three months. This is where my memories first start. I have memories of playgrounds and some landscape memories from that time, but only sketchy memories of my parents. I think there might have been an idea that my mother should stay in South Africa with me for the rest of the war. However, for whatever reason, this was not to be, and they returned, at the end of their leave, to West Africa.

At first I was cared for by a nanny with whom I lived in a Private Hotel, location unknown. I have some meories of that time, including a bout of mumps which necessitated the wearing of a red and white spotted scarf to hold the warm pads used to sooth my swollen glands. I also remember, to my shame, being pushed around in a push-chair. This was a great indignity to a child who was perfectly capable of walking. It was then decided that I needed the company of other children so I was then deposited in a children's home in Robertston, about 80 miles from the Cape, for the rest of the war. I have many memories of that time, not many of them were happy, though I am sure I was well taken care of. I was fast becoming a little girl lost.

Soon after VE Day I was taken down to Cape Town to join the Andes, the first troop ship out of South Africa after VE day. I have many happy memories of that journey. I was the only child on the ship and was spoilt rotten. I know we stopped in at "Gibbinralter" and I was apparently heard to remark that the "Jackanese" were still fighting. I was taken off the ship in Liverpool and travelled in an army jeep to meet my parents, who had already returned from West Africa, on the steps of a Liverpool hotel.

Post war England shocked me. We had a long and tedious train journey to London from Liverpool with frequent long stops caused, I believe, by being shunted into sidings. I can remember the devastation in Liverpool and London: bomb sites, remaining walls of houses, often with a ceiling light flapping in the breeze. Always observant of colour and light, many of those snapshots in my mind are grey and bleak, though lightened by memories of the lights coming back on in Piccadilly Circus and fireworks on VJ day.

This is where my wartime story ends and another begins. But that is not destined for this page.

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