大象传媒

I was living in Bournemouth. I had a Millinery Shop at Horseshoe Common but war broke out and we had to do war service. First I worked for the Fire Service. I had been doing part time work for the Fire Service before the war, staffing the phones etc. There was no bombing in Bournemouth at the beginning of the war so things didn't change too much. We went to the canteen at the YMCA voluntarily. The troops would come in. My mother had died and I had come to Bournemouth and was living in a bedsit. On Richmond Hill there use to be a Hostel for people coming into the town for war work. They shut off the seafront and most of the older chaps went in the Home Guard.

The bombing started and I went to Salisbury with the Fire Service, everybody was certain they would not attack the south but they came over one night and dropped all their bombs on Salisbury Plain. Then the actual raids started. Because I had done tailoring a lot they asked for volunteers to alter the uniforms to fit the Servicemen. We got paid 2/6d an hour which was wonderful, very good money, I did that one evening a week plus three evenings a week at the YMCA canteen.

We started a little sewing party in the YMCA where we sewed the stripes on the Servicemen's uniforms. We put up a notice saying we would do this service and they would bring their uniforms in, they looked so young.

I became ill and had to go into Hospital for chest treatment, when I came out I was told I had to do half days only. I got a job on the switchboard, mornings only, at Southern Electric, Yelverton Road. I was still in my bedsit,you couldn't get a Flat anywhere. The Servicemen's wives came down to be near their husbands so the Flats were taken.

I continued my canteen work at the YMCA. Any chap or young fellow in any kind of bother would have been looked after there. They brought back the Frenchmen from Weymouth by bus. They were shocked they had been on the beach for several days after D-day. The response from the people of Bournemouth was terrific. They opened drill halls and several places to look after these young men. I remember the lines of boats at Bournemouth and Poole before D-day but did not realise how big it was until afterwards.

A bomb went down in Exeter Road and wiped out the Punshon Church.

I wasn't able to work and I was retired by the Medical Board, I did Adult Education. I taught one chap, who waa a Lorry driver, to read. He had two boys and when I took him on I said, "I am sure you will find it easy". He said, "My two boys are going to read or I will want to know why!"

I was with the Southern Electricity for 25 years. I was lucky because I did not have the position of a man returning from the war so I kept my job.

I was born in Portsmouth my father was in the Navy, I went to London and trained as a Tailoress at Bond Street. My father paid eighty pounds for my apprenticeship. I enjoyed my time there. They had six apprentices at a time and if you didn't pass the first year you were out. We had gents as well but the ladies were not allowed to take the gents measurments. We used to make hunting jackets but the silk used for the reveres came from France and imports were going down.

I saw Cicely Courtneidge and Jack Holbert. We used to pay youngsters 3d a stool to keep our place outside the Theatre. 1s for a pot of tea and a fairy cake from Lyons Corner Shop. My favourite corner shop was Tottenham Court Road. If you were really well off you could have a salmon salad for 3/6d.

1937/38 my mother passed away and I thought I would find another job and came to Bournemouth and found a bedsit in Talbot Road. I hadn't got a job between leaving London and moving to Bournemouth. I went and got a job doing teas at a Hotel.

Prunella .......?? started the first Health and Beauty Class at the Richmond Hotel Hostel and you could have your hair curled with irons. For keep fit we used to wear navy-blue knickers and white Airtex shirts very daring in those days.

The Canadians came over to back up our men and they were so polite - used to stand and wait in the queue and if you sewed their stripes on, (we had recruited a lot of ladies by now) they would bring you back a bar of chocolate or sugary confections. They were so generous but they were mostly older men. They were in the East Cliff Hotel doing administration work.

The Americans arrived slightly after the Canadians and when dried egg arrived with them that was a hey day. They brought nylons, cigarettes and sweets, but the eggs were wonderful, you reconstituted it and could make lovely steamed puddings.

The Americans were very good, but they were very much younger than the Canadians.

If you were working you had one ticket for a meal in a British Restaurant. If you were elderly you could go twice a week with these tickets. The Drill Hall had one of these Restaurants and the Pavilion. We were so fortunate and you had one ticket for a white and one for a brown loaf.

I think we did better in this country than Europe did, I think because we were an island.

During the war I became engaged to a chap in the Pay Corps and he went out to the Far East.

We used to go to tea dances 3.30 pm to 5.30 pm. It was a shilling to go in and we had a pot of tea and toast. Percy ......?? and his orchestra use to play. He had a green velvet jacket, wing collar and bow tie.

In Bobby's there was a Restaurant and my father played in the orchestra they use to have a cake trolley and this fifteen year old boy dressed in a chef's hat would leave the trolley and sing in the microphone. He had a beautiful voice and was quite a draw to Bobby's, people would queue to get into the Restaurant. They had an orchestra at Plummer Roddis too and they had a singer as well.

You used to have your ration book and you would take it with you, my butchers was in Winton if he liked your face he would go under his counter and save a lovely piece of whale steak. It was grey and it ponged out loud!! It was free of ration. Some people would make fish pie out of it. You could buy whale meat sausages, may be four,put your pan on if you had run out of your fat ration you would put boiling water in it. When the sausages got hot they would smell, I hated them but a lot of people ate them, they had to work and needed the food.

My father taught the young Servicemen the basics of music and they would have a hop on Saturday night.

Occasionally we would get tinned fruit but this would be very hush hush depending on how well you were in with the supplier. Out it would come from under the counter and you would hide it in your jacket. You use to pay for it - well over the odds sometimes. If you had chickens you had to share your eggs with the community.

I did the costumes for the first Ice Show ever, they had lots of skaters, the first show was called "The Fleets in Port Again." Anyone who could skate would get roped in on the end of the chorus line even if they could only skate a little if someone went sick. 1/6d to go in and hire skates for 1/9d.

The Aqua Shows were very popular and very famous.

You took life as if it didn't really matter. I was afraid sometimes but I believed we would come out on top, you had a great desire to do as much as you could but go on doing the other things as well.

When Beales was there you bought wire and ribbons but it got bombed and I have admiration that they kept going. It was a daytime raid, I don't think it was a deliberate bombing I just think they jettisoned their bombs on their way home.

The Servicemen were bombed at the Metropole Hotel.

Everytime there was a new film we would go to the Cinema, we had some great films during the war, "Mrs Miniver" and "In Which We Serve". It was 9d for the first row then 1s and 1/6d and then 2s. Every Cinema had a Restaurant before and after the war. It cost about 2/6d for the whole evening including the meal.

Trolley buses used to go up Richmond Hill and on to Moordown. There use to be a turntable where Somerfields is now and it would turn round and go back. It cost 3d and if you were lucky they would let you sit on the bus while it turned round and then it cost you 3d back that was our outing.

I had some very great friends. The father of one Mary's was a gamekeeper and I use to go to her house on a green Hant's and Dorset bus. I took a small towel and a bowl becsuse it was so bumpy and I am a bad traveller and was sick. The Hant's and Dorset bus station used to be in the Town Centre. It use to have a little place where you could get tea and toast for 2d each. It has burned down now. I do not know what idiot decided to pull down the clock in the square in Bournemouth. It was solid and a landmark and put up when Bournemouth was so fathionable.

I was able to make my own clothes, when I joined up with my friend who was the Area Adminstraitve Cook for the area. She was a very large lady, we decided that when peace came we were going to Jersey by plane. She had three overalls wrapovers and she unpicked them and I made skirts out of them for our holiday.

After the war we went to Hurn, which was just like a shed. Never flown before, we started up, we hadn't got to the top before I was feeling sick and was sick all the way there. The Airhostess was very worried and radioed ahead for an ambulance. We landed in Jersey round to Corbiere Bay to the hospital. Eventually i got better and I had a gorgeous fortnight, they had sealed off the camps where our men had lived. Everything in Jersey had been controlled by the Germans they were going to conquer us from there!! When it was time to return home the Doctor game me an injection to try and prevent the sickness. You had to pay for it because we did not have the National Health in those days. Before I got on the plane I went shopping and bought seven necklaces to take home to friends this was more than we were allowed to take home so I wore them round my neck. I was given a seat in the middle of the aeroplane. A man was there who was very sick as well. The stretcher attendant at Hurn caring for sick people undid my dress and saw the necklaces but she said it was alright and said nothing. So I got out of that.

You could buy a section of parachute material and soak it to get the stiffness out. I would put it in the bath in cold water. There was a dye called Drummer Dye and you bought one especialy for parachute silk. It was lovely to wear it was really good quality stuff.

We used to pick branches from a bush next to the Pavilion and strip them of their leaves. You were then able to buy coloured sealing wax and make flowers out of it, twist them on the sticks and make flower decorations. We started selling them in the canteens to raise money for the war effort.

I started collecting teddy bears in 1938. A lady in Honiton who had a big collection and had heard of me said I could go and look at her collection. I went on the train it was coming up to 1938. She gave me four bears and we got on very well. She gave me the name of 2 collectors in London. i came back on the bus clutching the four bears and was very ill. During the war there were not very many teddies around in the war, I used to take my bears into the shelter during the Air Raids, I mostly used the basement in Richmond Hill. People would always take their treasured possessions with them - one man would carry a bag containing jars of pickled onions that he had pickled himself every single time.

We were very lucky in this part of the Country.

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