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MEMORIES FROM DEVON AND LONDON.
This story was submitted by Jo Taylor on behalf of LIZ BAILEY and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Liz’s father had been injured during WW1 and had a lung removed. During the Second World War he was therefore in the Home Guard, and Liz is lucky enough to have childhood memories with her father present. When war began the family went to Raintree in Essex, but then they moved back to London, and then again to Devon.

DEVON
Devon was idyllic. She remembers it as being quiet and untroubled by the war.
· They used to stand and watch the ‘gliders’ fly over.
· Also American service men based nearby so the children were not reduced to sweet rations.
· Remembers the country as being a land of plenty. There was no shortage of fruit and vegetables. Remembers her mother packaging up bottled fruit and skinned rabbits wrapped in brown paper to send back to relatives in London.
· Evacuees in Devon. Liz remembers two brothers who were evacuated to a house down the road from where she lived. They were often left sitting on the road outside, and her dad used to invite them in out of the cold.

LONDON
At some point the owners of the cottage that they were renting wanted it back, and the family moved back to London. Her mother worked in the fur trade and was employed in the West End making flying Jackets for the war.
· She remembers her mother hating to move to London. It was so different to the life they had become used to in Devon. Food was all rationed and they were unable to supplement it with the local produce that they had grown used to in Devon.
· Her mother worked in the fur trade Liz remembers watching Spitfires doing victory rolls when she was back in London, and the fact that the war was obviously very much more immediate.
The Blitz.
· She can remember walking round unexploded bombs in the street, and rows of houses blown down.
· One memory is of the corner shop, where the owner put his head out just as a bomb exploded and he was killed instantly.
· She remembers watching when the docks were being attacked, and that the whole sky was ablaze.
· Her mother had decided after one night in the public air raid shelter in the park that she was never going back there again. They did have a Morrison Shelter in the house, but after a few uncomfortable nights in there, they remained in their beds at night for the rest of the war.
School.
· Liz can recall the sirens going off on the way to school and standing against a wall not knowing where to go. The school had no shelter and every one went to the cloakroom when the sirens sounded.
· Her schooling suffered because of all the changes in schooling. She remembers her dad going to the London school because she was in trouble over her spelling, and another time because the headmistress had made her stand on a table because she was unable to Knit!

She was evacuated to Manchester in 1942/1943 but was so homesick that her mother came and collected her after 3 weeks. She does remember however that she went with her evacuee family on holiday to Blackpool for a week, and she remembers climbing up the tower.

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