大象传媒

My brother and I were never evacuated, as were many children from round about. Mum and Dad said that we would stay together as a family regardless of what came along. They felt very justified in their decision when they heard the news of the City of Benares being torpedoed en route to America with a large loss of life among its evacuee passengers. So we saw out the war at our house, but when Dad died of leukaemia in 1941, it was just Mum and two lads from then on.

To help with the finances after becoming a widow, Mum went back out to work but we also had a succession of airmen billeted on us, who were based at the Heston Aerodrome mentioned above. Being a civil aerodrome it had little accommodation on the site, so when the R.A.F. took it over until the necessary huts etc. were constructed, a large number of the personnel were billeted in the surrounding area with the householders receiving money from the M.O.D. or whatever. The men we had were provided with a bicycle to get to the base as there was no bus route that went past the main gate. I think we had three different airmen over a year or so during 1941-42.

At various times we spent night after night during the Anderson shelter in the garden, and days and days in the big underground shelters built on the school playing fields just outside the classrooms. In the gaps between the 鈥渂litzes鈥� evacuees trickled back but rarely was my class complete with all its pupils.

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