大象传媒

We lived in Hackney, London until September 1940. A landmine fell into the middle of our road and flattened all the houses. Luckily we had gone to the Salvation Army shelter that night, we could hear the landmine but didn't realise it had turned our home into rubble. We lost everything we had. Our paretns decided to take us to Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, on our way to the station we passed a blown-out sweet shop. My sister was eager for the sweets,and was so disappointed when we were forbidden to touch them. They were completly covered with tiny pieces of glass.
We stayed in a large hall for a few nights with a lot of other people from London, plus a German spy who was arrested by four men in long black coats and Trilby hats.
We found a small cottage to live in, by a pub, mum,dad and us four children. All we had was a mattress, a penknife and a three-legged table (it wasn't meant to be that way). The cottage had gas light downstairs, oil lamps in the bedrooms, and had an open fire. It was covered in cobwebs with cockroaches in the coal cupboard. Dad worked on the electricity pylons.
We lived close to a prisoner-of-war camp for Italian prisoners. After a local river flooded it was the Italian prisoners who came to dig it out. There was no hard feelings between us- the prisoners were friendly and some spoke English. They made willow baskets to sell, and I remember my mother making tea for them. We all felt sorry for them- they didn't want to be there.
We stayed there until November 1946, we would have happily stayed there, but mum and dad wanted to go back to London. They were eager to see their friends again.

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