大象传媒

I was evacuated from North London on Friday 1st September 1939. I was 11 and my brother was 8. We were evacuated to Fleckney, between Leicester and Market Harborough, with our school St. Judes. A week later my Mother was evacuated with my 11 month old baby brother to White Hills in Northampton. My Father, his sisters and elder brother were left in London.

On the train to Market Harborough it was exciting for some of the children because many of them had never been away from London before or on a train - people were very poor. My brother and myself were lucky because our Dad was in work and we never went hungry. (My Mother used to make Christmas decorations on her sewing machine and we used to help her and earned one shilling a week).

Some of the children on the train were frightened, especially the little ones, some were only 4 and 5 years old. We were not told where we were going and they would not tell our parents either, which as you can imagine was quite a worrying time. When we arrived at Market Harborough we walked from the station to the Market Hall where there was a mass of children and helpers who gave us a bun and a cup of tea. We were then ushered into a coach to go to our different destinations, I remember being worried because I suffered from travel sickness on coaches (fortunately I was alright).

It was very dark when we arrived at Fleckney and we were taken to the Village Hall where there were all the Foster people waiting. They chose the children they wanted and departed. My brother and myself were among the last to go because I was abiding by my Mother's words which were 'you must stay together'. They said to me this may not be possible, I remember I was very worried. We were taken with the remaining children along the streets and every house we came to children were being dropped off and then it was our turn. When the lady opened the door her words were 'I wanted two girls'. The officer said 'please take this brother and sister for tonight abd I'll sort it out in the morning, the children are very tired'. Well, we were not separated the lady decided to keep us.

We were treated very well, the lady and her husband were very kind to us, we did not stay very long there as Mother and Dad decided to move from London to Northampton and we have been here ever since.

Food was rationed, we had ration books and clothing coupons and everyone had to make do and mend, we unpicked old jumpers and re - knitted the wool, the same with clothes, people made other things from the material.

Iron railings were removed from parks and houses to be melted down to make guns, etc... som parts of parks were dug up to be used for allotments to grow food.

Th Merchant Navy did their best to bring food in from abroad but many lives were lost when the ships were sunk, however when they did get through word soon got round that certain shops or market stalls had oranges, bananas or grapes. If you saw a queue you just joined it even if you did not know what was there, you hoped they would not sell out before it was your turn.

When the Americans arrived their Government made sure they did not go hungry so the English had a taste of spam and dried eggs. My sister was going out with an American when he had his relations send over nylons and make up for her - nylons were unknown to us then.

There was an announcement on the radio for the children to take a jam jar and collect the white butterflies, as many as we could because, it being a very hot summer, the butterflies were eating all our cabbages away. We had to take our jam jars full to a collection point where we were paid a penny for every full jar.

Sweets were rationed and when when news got out that a certain shop had their stock delievered there really was a queue! Even paper bags were short, you took used ones or did without and carried your items in your arms.

One day my brother and I were playing down the road when an Army Lorry drove up and asked if our Mother would boil some water for the 30 soldiers in the lorry to have a drink of tea. My mother filled their tea urn with boiling water for them and they were so grateful they gave her a very large tin of corned beef! It lasted us all week and my Mother worked wonders with it - we had it cold, fried, minced... but it was lovely.

Sometimes the London people used to get away from their homes and came to Northampton to lok for digs just to get a couple of nights sleep away from the bombing. My Mother used to put them up - we slept on the floor many weekends so they could rest. I remember when Coventry was being bombed - we could see the red glow in the sky from our bedroom window. My Dad used to travel to Coventry every day to work on bomb damage - my Mother used to worry about him working there. My eldest sister used to work on the Lancaster bombers, these were being assembled at the Bus Depot. in St. James' End. They used to keep some buses parked outside so people did not know what was going on inside.

My other sister was in the NAAFI and was posted to Egypt, my brother was in the D - Day offensive and survived, indeed the six of us are still going strong today and all have our memories. One last memory was when my brother and his friends went to the sweet shop and bought little bars of Ex - Lax chocolate that were not rationed - NONE of them went to school the next day but slept in bed, I won't tell you what my Mother called him! I could write a book about the war like a lot of people.

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