大象传媒

I was just ten years old when we heard Neville Chamberlain on the radio telling us that we were now at war with Nazi Germany. I felt a gaping hole in my belly and a mixture of sensations of bewilderment and apprehension. I do not think that many people felt fear as such, but an expectation that the bombs would start dropping immediately, and the Germans would be parachuting into our back gardens at any moment.

We had already installed an Anderson shelter in our back garden at the expense of some fruit trees and bushes. My brothers had dug deeply, and we had laid a concrete foundation and sidewalls, so our shelter was definitely a thing of which to be proud. We could not at that time foresee how many hours we would be spending in it.

But the Government decided that children should be evacuated to a safe place, and so two weeks later my sister and I, with most of our schoolmates, were put on a train to an unknown destination. Of course, parents were traumatised at not knowing where their precious broods were going, but it was not "done" to make a fuss about it. That bloody stiff-upper-lip rule that has caused the British so much grief for so many years.

So off we went with our gas masks in a cardboard box hanging from our necks by pieces of string, and we arrived -somewhat incredibly in retrospect - in Brighton. We were allocated to hosting families, and my sister and I were sent to a curate and his Portuguese wife. They were, I suppose, nice people, but we lasted only about a month. We never knew exactly why we were moved, but were somewhat relieved to be transferred as we found the religious and snooty atmosphere to be very depressing. It may be remembered that 1939 had a great Indian Summer, and it probably did not help that I suffered a very severe sunburn after spending several hours on Brighton beach under the supervision of schoolteachers; I had to be immersed in iced baths and could not stand the touch of even bedsheets against the skin.

We were moved to a much poorer family where we lived in a two-up. two-down, terrace house with about six other people. My mother visited as often as she could, and when she saw our living conditions and that my sister was sharing a room with a little girl who had tuberculosis, she managed to get us transferred again.

So we went to live with a delightful young, childless, couple who made us really welcome. He was a school caretaker, and he was happy when I would attempt to help him with his chores. They treated us as their family and included us in family parties and excursions. My sister remained in touch with the wife until last year, when she died at the age of ninety-something.

But the holiday by the sea came to an end when bombs were dropped along the south coast, and as London had until that time been free from attacks, many parents decided that their children would be better off with them. Of course, no sooner did we return to Croydon than the Blitz began.

To be continued.

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