大象传媒

I was born in May 1936, in Edmonton, North London. I was evacuated to Grappenhall when I was 7 years old, because both my grandparents were ill and my Mother couldn't cope with my older sister, Eileen and I. We went to this town, because my father was stationed there with the Royal Artillery. He used to lead the convoy of lorries and equipment to the London docks, to be sent to the soldiers fighting overseas.

My Father and I left from Euston station in London and made our way to Warrington. He took me to meet the people who were going to look after me. They were Mr & Mrs Baker and I don't think they liked me very much. They had 3 children, 2 a lot older than I and the youngest about my age. The only problem was that because I came from London, the older children kept calling me a Cockney (they thought that all Londoners were Cockneys, which of course was false). This naturally upset me.

As far as the youngest daughter was concerned, whenever she did anything wrong, she would tell her parents that it was me and I would be sent to bed without any tea. Occasionally, I didn't even know why this was. One day, my Father came to visit me, as he would be away for many days on end. On one occasion, he asked "Where is Maureen?" Of course, he was told that I had been naughty and that they had sent me to bed as a punishment. When hearing this, he became extremely angry and asked them if they realised that I was only a little girl of 7 years, living away from her Mother.

Sometimes when Father was away, my sister and I would go to his barracks and the soldiers would really spoil us. They would take us into the kitchens and the cooks would give us lovely sticky cakes.

I did make friends with a boy about the same age and we would go to the local canal and fish for "tiddlers". One day, I was so intent on getting these in my net, that I nearly fell in. Fortunately, he grabbed my legs and pulled me to safety. Another time, I along with the whole school were watching a film on Road Safety. One of the boys in my class suddenly called out to the Headmaster that his artificial eye had popped out. The whole school watched in wonderment and fits of laughter, as the Headmaster tried to put it back again.

The American Red Cross ships used to travel down the Grand Union Canal, taking injured American soldiers back home. When we knew that a ship was due, we would run to the water's edge and the personnel on board, both sailors and the injured, would throw us oranges and bars of chocolate, which of course we never saw during war-time.

Eventually, my Grandparents died and my Mother dedcided that she wanted her girls home with her (even though the Germans were now sending over the Buzz-Bombs and Rockets-V1's & V2's). My sister only lived next door to me in Grappenhall and she had the nicest people possible, looking after her. She was quite sad to leave them, but I was so happy to be going home, even if to do so was dangerous.

My stay in Grappenhall lasted for 6 months, although at the time, it seemed an eternity!

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.