大象传媒

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I don鈥檛 remember when we were first evacuated. I know we all had to assemble in a hall and had little things pinned to our coats. I came out of London from St Pancreas on the train and arrived in Luton where they lined us all up. People walked along saying, you go there and you go here, and we just stood there with our gas masks. I remember being very unhappy because I thought someone had pinched my Mum and Dad. I wasn鈥檛 at all happy in the house where I was placed in Dunstable and in the end my auntie came to take me back home.

My dad found a job in Hatfield and my parents rented a place in Luton but we used to go back to London every weekend. That was the funny thing; all these bombs and rockets were around but it never really stopped the people having an ordinary life.

We rented a house in Beechwood Road in Luton and went to Beechwood Road School. We were sort of outcasts really because we came from London. There was a lot of prodding and pushing and I can remember I used to get beaten up almost everyday. I was punched in the ear and had 6 months off school. But I went back and gave the other bloke a punch on the nose. We weren鈥檛 really accepted because we were strangers but it did settle down when people got to know us though.

It was a very strange situation really because Luton didn鈥檛 get a lot of bombs. A land mine came through the roof of the Vauxhall factory and killed lots of people and a rocket hit Commers. There used to be big paraffin type stoves that they used to light at night; it created lots of smoke and provided cover from the German planes. When we lived in Beechwood Road, if you went upstairs and looked out you could actually see London being bombed; we saw it all lit up. I was in Luton one day with my Mum and after we got off the bus a German aeroplane came down and machine gunned the street. There were shelters in local shops where you could run to, and that鈥檚 what saved us when he came down from bombing Vauxhall. That memory is still vivid.

One day, they asked us at school if we would like a holiday, well we thought that would be great but we ended up picking potatoes! We all worked like slaves but it was alright out in the field; every so often they would come along with some water for us to drink. They just conned you really when they said come on holiday, we were just slave labour but being children you didn鈥檛 have an opinion in those days.

At Christmas we were given an apple and orange and if there was anything else in your sock you thought it was wonderful! My Dad used to make a lot our toys out of fire wood. He made me a wooden truck of the fire-wood. I loved those toys as a boy.

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