大象传媒

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I lived in London but I was on holiday on Canvey Island when war was about to break out. We all went home. Our school was evacuated on a train to March in Cambridgeshire. We sat on a kerb and people picked us out of a crowd. We all had labels. I had boils on my neck and couldn鈥檛 carry my case, so someone was designated to carry it for me. I didn鈥檛 stay in March for very long, just a matter of months.

My father worked at the blind factory in Tottenham Court Road in London. They were all evacuated to Heath and Reach so I was transferred there. I don鈥檛 know how I got there but I was picked up in a car, which was quite unusual in those days. I was there for about 12-18 months before my family moved to Leicester Road in Luton. We had other evacuees staying with us, including 2 or 3 blind people and we always had lots of visitors from the family in London, who used to come down for a rest.

I started work in Dunstable for a chap who had been at the Empire Rubber Company throughout the war. One of my first jobs (I left school in 1945), was to direct a light on top of a pole in Grove House Gardens, for the celebration of VJ Day. The fellow I was with, Dick, was erecting this light. We had a ladder up the flagpole in the middle of the green. He gets to the top, the pole snapped at the bottom and down comes Dick. It then snapped over him again. He wasn鈥檛 very well for a long time. The Council turned up with a new flagpole, which was erected and a light attached to the top, all for the dancing and celebrations that took place that night.

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