大象传媒

I was ten when the war started and lived with my mum and dad plus two older brothers in upper norward south London. My eldest brother Louis was already in the air force out in Singapore. When it fell to the Japanese he was one of the lucky ones who escaped by ship to the Indian coast. years later when he was able to tell us something of that time. He said the journey was horrendous. They stood round the decks of the ships in whatever clothes they could find for hours on end looking for mines and trying to nudge them away with long poles

When they reached their destination and had planes to fly although my brother was ground crew he went up as gunner sometimes in that glass bubble under the plane short of bullets ,for such long hours that he was still trying to shoot in his sleep when he finally had a rest . When my mother finally heard from him after a year of thinking he was missing or dead she was mad with joy. When we saw him he was so thin and as yellow with jaundice we hardly knew him

I was evacuated right at the beginning of the war as we lived in London. The week we were to go the clothes shops opened early so that our mums could get the cloths on the list we needed to take with us like vests and knickers and those awful thick black lisle stockings which were part of our school uniform. Then with one small suitcase plus one tin of corned beef a bar of chocolate and some hard biscuits that I think must have come from one of Nelsons ships so hard that you could not get
your teeth Into it ( needless to say we tried) . Plus the inevitable gas mask in its little cardboard box. We were off on the train nobody knew where
It seemed like hours later we landed in Eastbourne and after a meal in the church hall the slow process of finding billets for all of us started. I went to a couple with a son and daughter it was ok until the mother told me to take my socks and shoes off . All the black dye from the lisle stockings I had worn All day had gone into my feet and I think she thought it was dirt she was horrified, not a good start for my first day away from home. Her husband had an awful temper he was shell shocked from the first world war and his daughter made my life hell saying that if I coughed or made a noise in bed he would come in and beat me. My father was such a gentle man, that I was terrified of him.

I was so glad when it was decided we were still too close to London and the whole school was moved to Wales I was to stay there until I was
Nearly Fourteen.. It was a small village called Llandilo we were the first Catholics in the village for forty years and were viewed with some suspicion I don鈥檛 know what the villagers made of the nuns

We got used to it and some of us would go out to the farms when we were on holiday to help with harvesting and time past. While I was there. I heard that I had a baby brother I didn鈥檛 know where he came from , but I was so excited to see him when I eventually came back home that the shock of what happened when I met my family at the station was really bad.

I came off the train and saw my mum dad and auntie waiting for me my Mother looked so strange. Not like the mum I knew at all, nobody said much. When we got home I was just about to ask about the baby when a knock came to the door three or four people came in all in white coats one said to my dad ( is she dangerous) Iheard someone say no and the next minute my mum came down the stairs with her suitcase packed and she was whisked away in an ambulance. ( I am seventy six years old now and I can remember every detail of that day as though it happened yesterday) Apparently as I learnt gradually over the years little by little my baby brother was borne in the blitz on London. My mother was very much on her own, dad was in the army, brother Louis missing somewhere in the East, Peter was away in college and I was in Wales ,and my mother was so brave she used to sit up night after night holding the baby to protect him from the bombing, until it all got to much for her and she had a nervous breakdown.

The baby went to live over the road with some very good friends. Mother was in hospital for a year and it was doubtful whether she would have come out at all .But ECT was a new treatment out and she was amongst the first to have it. It was given without the benefit of anaesthetic in those days. Patients lined up outside the room and then were strapped to a trolley with a gag in their mouth [barbaric] but it seemed to work because she was home within six weeks. By this time my brother john was in a children鈥檚 home in the country. He was gorgeous with golden ringlets. After regular visits it was decided that mum could have him back and she was so pleased she bought him a little powder blue coat and berry to match his blond curls. But when we got there some stupid bitch of a nurse had decided that he did not look like a boy so she gave him a short back and sides. My mum and I were devastated and had a hard time hiding our tears. If I could have got hold of that women I have given her a mouth full my mum was depressed for days and she had been so happy.

Time passed and it was decided that baby John and I should be evacuated with Mum to Walsall away from the bombing. The thing I can remember most about this time was the cold, we had one room in this house, the billet lady was always saying how short she was of coal, although she always seemed to have enough for her own needs.

After much persuasion my mother let me get a job and at fourteen years old I worked in a factory making small parts for submarines. I lasted two weeks but being a convent educated very innocent young girl. It wasn鈥檛 really for me. I didn鈥檛 really understand what the other girls were talking about. I think the supervisor must have said something because I was transferred to the office doing the wages and stayed there for a month until mum decided she had had enough and we went home. To my disgust dad said I had to go back to school. I went to a commercial school and came home at weekends. We used to watch the doodle bugs go past our bedroom window on their way to London and the fighter planes shooting them down

We watched the flying fortresses fill the sky on their way to bomb Germany in the daylight raids and saw the empty spaces in their formation on their way back to base and we said a prayer for the missing airman. We were on the railway station when the trains full of soldiers came through on their way to the invasion and ran up and down the platform giving them tea and sandwiches from the WVS Van . This was my war I will never forget any of it and neither should any one else.

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