大象传媒

I was at school in East London from 1942, first in the reception class, then in the Infants. As far as I can remember, we walked to school and back every day and followed a normal routine while there, except when the Air-raid Warning sounded.

If this happened, we could not carry on with our lessons but had to go somewhere safer. There was no bomb shelter as such, but the late Victorian school had a large cellar, which was big enough for the whole school. We would be taken down there and wait for the All Clear. We were apprehensive but not frightened; it was just an extra break to us.

However, there was one aspect that we were not happy about and that was the toilet arrangements. The only provision for us was a bucket which was in full view of everyone. I don't know if anyone ever used it, but certainly none of the girls in my class were prepared to utilise these facilities. We would hang on for as long as possible, crossing our legs and hoping that the All Clear would come before we became really desperate. It was a close call, but thankfully, there were no accidents.

When we came back to our classroom, we carried on as usual and forgot about the experience, though there was one occasion when we emerged from the cellar to see the road full of smoke and debris because a bomb had landed near the school. We heard later that several houses had been destroyed, including some where pupils from the school lived. I suspect some people were killed, but we were not told about this.

On the whole, the War did not impinge on our lives very much: the deaths and injuries were not communicated to us and we did not miss the food items like bananas that we had never known. There was rationing and we could only buy ice-cream once a fortnight, but this was accepted as normal. My sister and I were small for our age and the local clinic issued us with jars of malt and extra orange juice to build us up, so we did well.

What I do remember is people starting sentences with, "When the |War is over......", or "You do know there's a war on", or "It'll all be different after the War". It seemed as if everyone was hanging on until the day when it would be over and they could do all the things they wanted to; it was like the treasure at the end of the rainbow. You didn't have to worry about anything in the present, because everything would be all right after the War. It puzzled me because I thought, "When it is all over, what will be left for people to look forward to? How will they manage without something to focus their hopes on? What do you wish for in peacetime?" These were unusual emotions for a child of five, but I definitely felt them, even if I could not have expressed them in the language I use now, fifty-eight years later.

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