大象传媒

In 1941,unbeknown to me,my parents had planned to send me to Winnipeg, Canada, to stay with my mother's school friend and be safely away from the dangers of war in Europe. The dangers of the Atlantic, however, had to be faced first, and it was the torpedoing twice of the daughter of friends of friends, and her loss the second time that persuaded my parents to keep me in this country. I was not to remain with them on Mersy-side, however,but was sent to my aunt and uncle's house in Silloth on Solway where my experience of the war was to be very different to the air-raids endured in Wallasey. Indeed they faded from my consciousness as I struggled to adapt to my new life.For the first few weeks, however, I capitalised on my fame as an escapee from blitz-torn Mersey-side! My first piece of bravura was to demonstrate the workings of the stirrup pump and attendant buckets of sand and water found under the stairs to the attic, to my cousins aged 2 and 6 and to Pat aged 8. Before the show was over my uncle had arrived and , grimly lacking in humour,demanded to know whether I would do such a thing in my own home? Mercifully I had not added the sand to the water trickling down the stairs. For my next exercise I set about idetifying all the German spies who were congregating in this quiet sea-side spot. There were quite a few seeing the chief criterion was fair hair, but our little spy hunting group - swollen to five with the addition of two robust girls in place of baby Fiona - quickly discovered the real foe. These were certainly an odd pair of women who wandered along the sea shore gazing at the Solway through binoculars. One wore her yellow hair in a large bun under a fancy veiled hat,and a never-seen-before short plaid cloak, just waist length. The other was less memorable but both were elegant women, unusual in that place and at that time. I christened the dominant one !Goosey".Why? Goose-step? Yellow-haired goose girl from fairy stories? Who knows.We were certain they were signalling to U-boats in the sand-bank choked Firth, and set up signals of our own to each other by way of notes posted in a pretty wooden box which we hid in a hole scraped in the sandy bank of the fir-tree copse by the Pierrots' Pavillion. Alas! In a short time it went missing and so did Goosey and her partner. My next, indeed last, bid to help the war effort was more admirable. I managed to collect 10/- in aid of the Red Cross, and apart from an embarassing memory of one "concert" held before a group of Press-ganged adults , I cannot recall how this large sum was achieved!
In this quiet, untouched- by -raids, corner of Cumbria the only evidence that we were at war lay behind the house in the Silloth aerodrome where I understood, pilots were trained. We were used to the daily drone as the small planes rose, made passes up and down the Solway and swayed to land again. But on sveral occasions tragedy struck when explosions, flames and smoke announced some error in take off or landing. The most exciting near-tragedy happened before the eyesof us delighted children: we watched amazed as a tiny plane landed on a sand-bank in the Solway! When the tide was out there were many such sand-banks in the water, but they quickly disappeared as the sea flowed up the Firth again. This the pilot must have known for we saw his little match-stick figure running about the bank and waving his arms. We, too. became greatly concerned as we realised the bank was shrinking but my aunt reassured us he would be saved and on cue a fishing smack chugged out from the harbour to rescue him.
My uncke was in the HOme GUard and spent several week-ends on exercises to protect the marshes from invasion I suppose. His forebearance and temper were exercised too, I gathered,from his grumpy returns which my aunt soothed with much laughter. As manager of the Carr's flour mill he was in a reserved profession and was allowed a petrol ration which was used sparingly to take us all to Carlisle on occasions when more children's clothes and shoes were required than Silloth could supply. My aunt and uncle kept hens and grew lots of vegetables and soft fruit so we lived pretty well, and much of the latter was bottled and stored for the winter months.Much greater privations occured towards the end of the war and afterwards, but by then my parents had come north and I joined them to live in Carlisle, and that is yet another story!

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.