大象传媒

I suppose it would have been better if we had lived in London, escaped to Ipswich and then Hampshire but we did the reverse.

Before the war, and about two years after I was born, my mother, father and I lived in Chandlers Ford whilst my father worked in Southampton. Something like a 'moonlight flit' took place, however, and we moved to Ipswich just before those gallant German lads began to become interested in Harwich.

My aunt in Norfolk suggested that my mother and I should move inland when the bombing became somewhat concentrated and during the darkest days I paraded with the Home Guard at Magdalen on the forecourt of the Co-op wearing cut-down sergeant stripes sewn on to my coat. I was four and a half and was expert at arms drill and aircraft recognition.

It was clear that my parents' marriage was on the rocks since my father appeared less and less at weekends. When, eventually, there was an attempt to put the pieces of the marriage together again my father was now working in London - in the blitz - and we moved to 5, Laitwood Rd., Balham.

When the 'alert' went my mother, Pearl Barker, used to wake me and wrap me in the eiderdown for our 'adventure' under the dining-room table. There she would produce weak orange squash, a digestive biscuit and would read from one of the 'Pooh' books by A.A.Milne.

I took the bangs and crashes and thumps rather for granted - my mother, on the other hand, must have been terrified but she never gave the slightest sign of it. She had been reading about Pooh and the heffalump, and Piglet had said,
"Suppose a heffalump were to come?" and Pooh had said, "supposing it doesn't".

There was an almighty crash and I saw a picture jump up on its string.

I said, "what would happen if a bomb fell on the house? "Suppose it doesn't", said my mother

The next morning on the way to school we picked out way over bomb-damage rubble. Now I was six, but for some reason I was not afraid. It was because all the adults around me just carried on in a way that I could only appreciate when I was into middle age, and then doubt if I was made of such stuff.

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