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I was evacuated on the 5th July 1944, the day before my 6th birthday. When I was two years old I was evacuated with my mother somewhere on the Salisbury Plain. My mother hated the countryside especially when she had to empty the chamber pots over the garden wall and hadn’t learnt that the wind direction had to be taken into account. Hitler’s bombs were easier to face than this and she decided to come home She told me this when I was older of course.

I remember the blitz very well even though I was very young. Our dug-out in the garden became water-logged and we used to go into our neighbour’s, the Ungaretti’s, for shelter. The ground used to shake when the bombs dropped and the grown-ups would discuss where they thought the bombs were dropping.

‘That’s the paper mills’, my mother would say and I knew they were very near to where I lived in Merton.

One day I was in the back yard with my mother and she pointed to a machine with fire coming out of the back streaking across the sky. Another time I was sitting with her by the fire at night and we could hear one of these machines getting nearer and then the sound suddenly stopped. ‘That’s it’, said Mum and grabbed me and my baby sister to a cupboard under the stairs just behind where we were sitting. There was a whoosh and all our doors came off and windows broke.

My father was in the navy so she was alone and although I didn’t know it then expecting my brother Eddie. Later she was talking to a neighbour, Mrs Bradshaw, over the front garden fence about a new lot of evacuees going away amd she looked down at me sitting on the step and said ‘Do you want to go?’ I said, more out of bravado I think, ‘Yes’.

The next few weeks were spent getting me new clothes using precious coupons. I was told that I was going to Yorkshire, a very long way away, and that it was very cold there and so I was bought a new coat and Panama hat to wear. Because I was not going to be at home for my birthday I was also taken to Woolworths in Wimbledon, to pick a present. My mother took very special care to label all my clothes and that they were neat and clean. She told me that this would make sure that I went to a nice family.

When the day arrived for me to go, I had to wear my coat and being July it was hot. The Ungarettis came out to wave goodbye and half-way down the road I turned back after waving again and walked into a lamp post. I didn’t cry because I wanted to be brave. When I reached my school at the bottom of the road there were double decker buses waiting to take us to London to catch a train so we had to wave goodbye to our parents.

The train journey seemed to take a very long time. It stopped quite a few times in the middle of nowhere for no reason to us and we would look out of the windows. Our faces got covered with smuts and we ate our sandwiches. I do remember being amazed at the countryside — our terraced house had a row of factories no more than 25 feet from our back door, we were No 3 and right next to No 1 was a factory, and immediately across the road at the front was another row of factories.

At last we reached Yorkshire and we were taken to a large house for the night. We slept in a large room on the floor and the boys made paper planes and through them at one another. An adult came in and told us to go to sleep.

Next day we were told that we were going to a village called Embsay where people would come to choose us. I went with other children in a taxi — this seemed very exciting — I am sure I had never been in a taxi until then. On the way we went over a hump-backed bridge which made our stomachs go over and we laughed at this.

When we got to the village hall we were taken inside and our cases were put on tables in the middle. A lady came and looked at mine and told me to stand aside as she had a friend who had asked her to pick out a little girl for her. Later this friend came in and the first lady brought her over to me. She smiled and said I could go home with her. On the walk home she said that she had a little girl named Ann who was at school at the moment. I pointed to some flowers growing beside a wall and aked her what they were. She said they were wild roses.

When we got home she asked me how I had got the bruise on my forehead — I told her about the lamppost and also said that it was my birthday. I said I had some presents in my case. She went to a larder and to my surprise she got out a cake. It wasn’t iced, of course, but the fact that she had a cake amazed me. She had some birthday candles and stuck them in the cake and said we would have it for tea. She then told me to look through a window in another room to look out for Ann. Very soon a little girl with short brown curly hair walked up the path and smiled at me. Somehow, I knew that everything was going to be alright.

Even so, that night I cried in bed with the covers over my head so nobody could hear me. I had to get used to the horrible ache I had inside me.

The family were very good to me and Ann and I were firm friends. From my window I could see the Yorkshire Dales and that cold winter — much colder than London, we would go tobogganing and the German prisoners of war in a camp near by would ski.

My school days, at the beginning, were not so happy. We London children had very scant education as school days were very disrupted. A lot of the time we sat in brick shelters in the playground when a siren went and of course the nights were very noisy. The village children seemed to be well ahead of us but some of them were older too. Ann was fourteen months older than me and she was in my class.

Our teacher didn’t like evacuees and she would call us lazy and said we were cowards for running away. She said I would never pass my scholarship. One day I took my sum book up to her to be marked and she turned and glared at me. I threw my book on the desk knocking over a bottle of ink. The whole class gasped and I turned and ran. My coat was on a high peg and I struggled to unhook it. I ran out and cried all the way home. I t was autumn and the leaves were wet on the ground. The smell of a damp autumn even now can take me back to that day.

I remember having treacle pudding at lunch time and I was still crying. Aunt Gladys said ‘Right. I havn’t had any trouble with you. I will go over to the headmaster (he lived opposite) to sort this out.

She later did this but on her return said I must go to school the next day. I went but was very unhappy. When the teacher saw me she told me to get a chair in front of the class and stand on it. She then said I was a cowardly Londoner. Behind her desk was a partition separating two class rooms. The headmaster came through this and told me to sit down. He then asked her to go with him. When she returned she said nothing and from that time neither I or any Londoner in that class were taunted by her.

In the spring of 1945 the war was coming to an end, of course. Unfortunately just before Easter I caught scarlet fever and had to go into a fever hospital for six weeks. I wasn’t allowed any visitors and when I was due to come home I had to leave the few toys I had.

I came home to a baby sister who was toddling around and a new baby brother. I was very happy to see my mum and dad but I missed the countryside and my new family at the same time.

For the VE celebrations it was decided that our little community of half-a-dozen streets would have a party in Adnams, a coach firm in Merton. This was like a bus garage so there was plenty of room. We were told that there would be competitions and fancy dress. I spent a lot of time in the Ungarettis, our neighbours. They said they would make us a fancy dress and thought my little sister, who was nearly two, and I, nearly seven, could go as Irish colleens. They made us little green dresses, red kerchiefs and white aprons.

They said I should enter for a children’s singing contest and I would go next door and practise ‘Golden Slumbers’ day after day.

When the day arrived we were very excited. We went into what to me seemed a huge place. The children sat at trestle tables and we had sandwiches and jellies. It seemed a feast to us but considering the rationing then on, I am sure to-day’s children wouldn’t think much of it.

When it was time for the fancy dress, I walked hand-in-hand with my sister in a circle with the other children. We won a prize for the prettiest costumes. For the singing contest I had to get up on the platform and sing through a microphone with somebody accompanying me on the piano. After a false start, I managed to get through my act. I got second prize to my delight. I would add that I don’t think anybody would give me a prize for singing to-day.

I shall never forget that day. In fact memories of those war years remain the clearest of all.

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