大象传媒

I have lots of memories of the war years. As the youngest child in a family of four children I watched and listened to family arguments. For example my eldest brother upset my parents greatly when he added a year to his age and joined the navy in 1943. After that for me he was the big brother who came home occasionally with picture books of strange places.

London Blitz
We at home lived in a large victorian house with a cellar. During the raids we were woken up at night and taken to sit on the cellar steps until the all clear sounded. I remember standing on our front step after the raids with my father looking towards London, about 35 miles away, and seeing the glow in the sky. My father said to me that it was London burning.

Evacuees
We had evacuees posted to our school and we had 80 children in a class. We couldn't fit into class rooms so many of our lessons were taught in the hall or on the big front stair case with six children to each step. We used to run past a house where lots of the evacuees lived, because they were strange and different and we were afraid of them.

Food
We converted our garden into a vegetable garden and had an allotment too. I learned a lot of gardening from my father at that time and still have an allotment today. We also kept chickens and one of my worst jobs was to be sent down to the cellar to fetch eggs which had been preserved in a bucket of eisinglass jelly. I can still feel the shudder when I had to put my hand into this horrible jelly and find the eggs. I also remember my father looking very ill when he had to go to the end of the garden and kill a chicken for us to eat.
Another of my jobs was to stand in the Saturday morning bread queue at the local bakers with out ration books and collect the loaves which were our due for a family of six. Then I would go to the sweet shop and buy the sweet ration. When I got home I divided the sweets into five packages - one for each child and one for Mummy and Daddy to share. I learned very young to buy small sweets such as dolly mixtures so that I could put several in each package.

ARP
My father was too old to be in the army
as he had fought at Gallipoli in the first world war, but he joined the Home Guard and we always had his helmet with ARP painted on it in white paint, hanging on the back of the scullery door.

Gas masks
We were issued with gas masks which we had to take with us all the time. So I had to take mine to school. It was in a round black tin with a string to hold it by. Families who could afford them could buy brown cases which were smarter but all my family had black tins and I remember using mine as a very effective weapon against other children who I did not like!!
We used to have gas attack praticies when we all had to go on to the playgorund and put on our gas masks. I never could breathe in mine which smelt horribly of rubber and I just used to hold my breath and panic. 60 years later trying to snorkel on the barrier reef I was reduced to a quivering wreck by the rubbery smell of the mask!

Arnhem
I remember our neighbour, Mrs Pascal, coming over to see my mother and crying. I did not appreciate what had happened at the time but her son had been killed at Arnhem and she had received a telegram. Now of course I can understand what it was all about.

So many memories, but that will do for now.
Janet Stevenson(Caradine)

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