大象传媒

I was born in S E London a year before the war started. We lived in a block of flats, just off of the Walworth Road.
Mum, myself as a baby and my older brother John (then about 3 years old) wre sent to a farm in Devon.
Mum's best friend and her children were sent to another farm nearby. Unfortunately her friend couldn't setlle and wanted to go back to London, so although mum was quite happy there, she decided to go back too.
Luckily my dad had just got a job with the LSA in Beds, looking after a smallholding, which thinking about it now was quite something, as he had only had a window box in London.
A small house went with it, but we always seemed to have vaious relaives staying with us, usually from London, and mainly my Nan and Grandad.
It was just as well we Did move when we did, as our flat was demolished the week after we left.
We always had a couple of goats, plenty of rabbits and chickens, and at one time some pigs. Does anyone remember the "Tottenham pudding" which they sent from London? It was food scraps etc left over, and sometimes coming from hotels etc, we found spoons etc in them.
Mum used to boil up the old spuds etc for the pigs
(I can still smell them, the spuds I mean), and many's the time - when I was older of course, would nick a steaming one. Delicious, or so we thought then !!!
One of my friend's dad kept bees. He gave us the old oneycombs afterwards, gorgeous, luckily we never finished up with a bee in our mouths !!!
Although many of us kids didn't have many toys, we were never bored, and shared a lot of things.
We always had plenty to eat, we were lucky. Eggs, fruit and ved, chicken, rabbit etc, and because there was raioning, not many sweets, but Nan saved her sweet coupons for us.
We always had home made cakes, but if we were sent to get a swiss roll, that was a real luxury, and we would take our time "unrolling" it, before we slowly ate it. The first time I was lucky enough to have a banana, I thought it was horrible, expecting it to be more juicy.
In the kitchen was dried apple rings, kilner jars full of fruit, and of course plenty of home made jam.
What I wasn't too keen on was Cod liver oil and Malt. Of course in those days people were issued with dried eggs, and concentrated orange juice if you were a baby.
I wonder why the women in those days always seemed to be wearing long "pinnies" and turbans on their heads to hide their curlers?
I was lucky because I was never really aware too much of the war going on. Two hings Do stand out in my mind though - my Grandad walking back from the nearest village , about 2 and a half miles away with a large bag of dog biscuits for our lovely dog JIP, He was walking along wha we called the "Bell path", as the Bell pub was on the main road (now the A1), and there was a ditch ran alongside of it. A German plane, which must have srayed was shot down, and the various parts of it were landing all around him, so he jumped into the ditch. When he eventually arrived home, the biscuits were practically powder form, as he's been clutching them so hard in fright.
The other thing that stands out, one of my aunts who was staying with us at the time suddenly stood up and said "Hold tight everyone", there was the sound of a "plane" going over, then a terrific bang, of course it was a doodle bug, which had landed in someones garden about 3 miles away.
We only attended the local school for half days, altho it was supposed to be for just up to 11 year olds, they had to take in older kids too.
We always had to walk the 2 and a half miles to school in all weathers, no school buses in those days.
Of course everyone was issued with a gas mask, as I was a baby a that time I had a "Mickey Mouse" one which was a box I would have been put in, thankfully it didn't come to that.
Oh yes, we were always being warned at school not to pick up strange objects, in case they were bombs in disguise. I do remember quite often we would find reels of silver metal, appanently they were to stop the radar as we had sevral barrage balloons not far away in Barford, where the gas cylinders were.
2 of my aunts were dating Canadian soldiers, who often came to our house. When they used to go dancing, they would put tan on their legs and draw a line up the back, making out it was a seam in heir stockings. How I used to admire their ankle strap shoes.
As we got a little older, my friends and I ould walk behind the Yanks - "Got any gum chum"? We were usually lucky.
We had Italian prisoners near our land, and thought nothing of sitting on heir laps while they made us rings from perspex (from planes windows). It was so much more innocent in thosedays too !!!
Scrumping apples was about the worst thing which we did.
I shall never forget those years living there till I was nearly 11. John with his pet jackdaw which would sit on his shouler at all times, even when he was in bed with the mumps. Our lovely dod called JIP and a tortoiseshell cat called "Minny".
The slates flying off the roofs if it was very windy - "Don't play near the house", the sand pits opposite, over the fields which had just one safe place we could bathe in, and of course the hick ice on there in the winter. My friend Margaret went under, but managed to get out thankfully.
I miss those days, but then, if I had been a bit older, it may have been another story.
We had rag rugs on the floor made from old clothing rags, but very cosy, and when the blackout curtains were finished with, he women made black bedspreads and decorated them in various colours.
When the war was over, we went to London, and I can remember the fires lit in the streets, and dancing the conga in and out of the shelters.
Oh yes, one more thing, wehad a land girl stay with us called Ruth.

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