大象传媒

Third Chapter of my story.

The Blitz - and Hertfordshire

I was in London in the Blitz, and can remember one lovely hot summer's evening that, after the Siren had gone, and we had all trooped down to the shelter, I heard someone shouting outside "look, look at that", and even though shrapnel was raining down, I could not resist jumping out to see. The sight that met my eyes filled me with awe and disbelief. The night sky, instead of being dark, was blood red, the reflection casting a rosy glow over everything, plants, paths, roofs, everything. I gazed upwards, and watched the sky which was ablaze with searchlight beams, changing, criss-crossing, seeking the bombers who were dropping bombs as I stood there. Tracer bullet trails glowed as our Spitfires executed dog-fights, and machine gun fire rat-tatted repidly. Ack ack guns from our defence boomed away, and shrapnel and spent bullets and bullet cartridges rained down on us. My dad ordered me back into the shelter , but stayed outside with his steel helmet, still acting as Air Raid Warden and about to go and help the injured. "its probably the sugar wharfs" he said. In the morning my brother and I went around the garden and picked up the spent bullets and shrapnel, to keep as souvenires. Even though we were young, we had a strong sense that we were living in memorable times; so we decided to get a cocoa tin, and write all about what was happening, and bury it deep in the garden. Its probably there to this day. The inferno in the night sky was caused by intensive bombing that Hitler had arranged on London Docks, to cut all our supplies and essential goods, and starve us and demoralise the country. We were very short of food already, and this was a terrible blow, and it meant that rations were cut again..
After a while , mum was forced to agree that we had better be sent away again.

So, reluctantly, under the Government Evacuation Scheme, another billet was found for us.

Hertfordshire

This was in Hertfordshire,but I can't remember the name of the place. It was a Council house, the woman had two babies, the husband was in the Army. She never seemed to wash the nappies, but hung them over the fireguard to dry, and the house just stank of stale urine. When we arrived, she resentfully took me up into a freezing cold bedroom, frowned at me, and showed me a canvas camp bed. She handed me an old grey Army blanket and said "I haven't any blankets - you can either put this under you or over you, I don't care which" and closed the door. This is when I learnt that the only way to get to sleep was to curl up into a tight little ball, hold your feet and rub you toes, which got chilblains, and after about 20 minutes of this you may be able to get warm enough to drop off. But I often woke in the night, shivering and freezing cold, and nothing to warm me in that cold room. Even in Hertfordshire, we had a raid one night. The woman woke Brian and I shouting "quick, get under the stairs"! So we all bundled under the broom cupboard, the two smelly babies and the smelly woman. The stench was overpowering, and my body could'nt take it; I stumbled into the kitchen, and threw up violently into the sink.
The credit side of Hertfordshire was that I started to love and appreciate the outside world, the natural surroundings and sweet fresh air, where I could feed tethered goats on the way to school (I took them to my heart), float on wooden boxes with some boys on a bog (god job I did'nt sink in), jump ditches and run wild. We could play in bomb craters, running up and down the sides, and pick mushrooms and eat them (always hungry), pick Hazelnuts and eat them, or fill sacks with acorns to feed the pigs; farmers paid you sixpence a bag, which I always spent on Humbugs. Needless to say, Brian and I were out of the house as often as we could and only returned to sleep and eat. But after a while, we found the house so disgusting that we wrote home to our parents, who brought us back again.

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