大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Wendy Young on behalf of Josephine Orchard, and Anne Tinkler. It has been added to the site with their permission. They fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

My name is Josephine and my twin sister is called Anne. We lived with our parents at Carshalton Beeches.
We attended the primary school in Stanley Park Road.
One day, when we returned home for lunch, we were at the pudding stage, when a bomb fell down the road. We dived under the table, badly grazing our legs, the ceiling came down and the glass from the window fell in.
Picking ourselves up, we decided this was a good time to miss school, so we went into the garden to play cricket. Before long, hoards of WVS ladies came with their dustpans and brushes and sent us back to school, which was so annoying, but it showed that we had some sort of resillence in our character.
Our parents were amazing, they were so calm and placid and saw us through the mumps when the blitz was on. I remember lying in a chair with the bombs falling feeling absolutely awful.
When we were evacuated to our aunt and uncle's in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, I remember the G.Is, we used to say to them "Any gum chum". Once we set up a stall outside our aunt's house and collected all sorts of rubbish and announced it was for the Red Cross.
Clothes were in short supply during the war because of rationing, and because of this our mother would make do and mend. She would patch our knickers, this was a source of embarrassment to us, especially when we did P.E.
We were given clothes from the neighbours' children, who were grown up, and they were hopelessly out of date. We went to school in awful overcoats which dated back to 1920 and this was 1940, so we were constantly embarrassed about our clothes.
Mother always made sure we had good shoes. She would put bits onto the hem of a skirt as you grew.
We seemed to go to the pictures a lot. We liked the American films, which were light and colourful, and were not like the grey life that surrounded us.
As children, we would squeeze out the last bit of toothpaste and soap, and even now we can't bear to see things wasted.
The sound of the siren, the noise of planes, have remained with us to the point where our blood runs cold these days if we hear similar sounds. The amount of fear regenerated has stayed with us for all our lives.
You can mention the facts of war but not the emotional facts, the emotional impact is for the rest of your life. You are aware that you are a survivor.

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