大象传媒

Elizabeth Hazelwood

I was evacuated from London at the start of the war to Woolond in the centre of Dorset at the age of two along with my big Sister, Brother and Mother. It was a small village with not many houses. We lived in a large Manor house which we shared with other families. It was next to the squire鈥檚 house so we were next to a rich family which meant sometimes we got little treats such as a ride in the pony and trap. We slept in the kitchen which was cold and had no light apart from an oil lamp which we carried around the house with us so we could see our way around. We dreaded getting up in the morning because when you touched the floor with your feet it was so cold after spending the night in a warm bed.
I went to school which was across the road from our temporary house. It was a large room where all ages learnt in different areas of it. Some of the older pupils used to teach the younger children. I was two years ahead of my age at school because I already knew how to read and write very well as I had started at an early age. I had a good education there as later I went on to grammar school in Blandford. I couldn鈥檛 see my friends at the weekends or in the holidays as they lived so far away and there was barely any transport apart from a few busses which were very expensive. I think I saw my best girl friend once in five years. It was hard to make friends in the village as they looked upon Londoners as poor and strange. Whenever anything went wrong the Londoners always got blamed. It was a lonely time but we got used to it after a while especially as I grew up with it.
All of my clothes came from my elder sister. The first piece of new clothing I got was when I was ten and my first pair of shoes when I was I was eleven as it was advised by the doctor because the shoes were too small and the arches of my feet were falling. This was mainly because we were a very poor family and material was very expensive to buy. I only had one set of clothes for school and leisure time, we had no hats, scarves or gloves and we were lucky if we had a coat. We dreaded winter as it was very cold.
My worst experience of being poor was when I was invited to a party and had to provide a present, but as we were so poor my mother said we couldn鈥檛 afford anything. I kept on at her though and eventually she gave in and provided me with a silver sixpence. When I got to the party though I didn鈥檛 give it to the girl because I was embarrassed that it was not enough, so I was left with the sixpence which burnt a hole in my conscience as well as my hand.
Food was rationed but we had enough to go round and I don鈥檛 remember ever going starving hungry. We only got two pieces of bread for tea though and it was a treat when we got jam or a piece of cake with it. We had main meals at school. I was quite thin in the war which is probably why I overeat slightly now. We ate rabbit frequently as this was our main meat supply. We didn鈥檛 get any exotic food though so when I got an orange at Christmas I was so excited. I couldn鈥檛 eat it for a long time because I thought it was all I had. By the time I did eat it had gone soft from being in my hands. We had cod liver oil and mort everyday before bedtime which I loved. These were like sweets to me we had it in tablespoonfuls each night. We got our vitamins from concentrated diluted orange juice but we always tried to sneak a spoonful undiluted because it tasted so sweet.
When I was little I had to go into hospital with scarlet fever. I was in there for six weeks. When I was brought home it felt strange because I had been in the hospital so long. I remember walking through the door and seeing everybody eating chips. I felt cheated because there were none for me and I had to have second hand chips off my sister鈥檚 plate on a saucer.
I remember my sister telling me that one day when she was about 12 she was sitting on the doorstep and saw 2 planes joined together and then rip apart and come hurling down towards her but when they were very close she suddenly realized that they were 2 butterflies. This gives the idea of how scared people were about the war and what tricks it could play on their mind. Of course being quite young I wasn鈥檛 aware of all the fighting and death that was going on in parts of Britain, it wasn鈥檛 until later on that I realized the full extent of the war. My father worked away in London with the Home guard most of the time but I still got to see him regularly because he was allowed leave about every six weeks. My mother was only young so she had a lot to deal with in the war being on her own with three children.
To earn some extra money I used to spend some days thinning out turnips on the local farm. I was very particular and did a thorough job so usually at the end of the day the farmer gave me a shilling which was quite a lot back then. It was back breaking work though and I often got blisters on my hands. I had to give a third of my earnings to my mother. There was also an old shire horse on the farm that I used to sit on a lot sometimes for a whole day. I also used to spend a lot of my childhood climbing trees with my sister.
At home we only had a bath once a week but I dreaded them because being the youngest when I got in the water was always cloudy and cold and the towels were damp. We couldn鈥檛 afford hot water very often because it was very expensive.
By Isabelle And Ashley

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