大象传媒

Continued from Pt I..
When we lived in London my mother had her 10/- (old money) -50p now 鈥� widows pension for herself, as we were absorbed into my grandparents household and my mothers three brothers were still living at home and earning and often bought me things, once we were in Cornwall we were on our own although I believe the Government gave Mrs Thomas an allowance for taking us in as evacuees.
Anyway, my mother had attended dressmaking evening classes in London so she could make clothes for me, so it stood her in good stead and she started taking in dressmaking. I would see her stitching away on a hand sewing machine with just a narrow beam of light coming down from the bulb wrapped around with black cardboard. As people had to give coupons for any material bought, she would give back any useful piece of material, but she had a bag of snippets and I would spend hours making clothes for 1d celluloid dolls I bought at Mrs Avery鈥檚 veg. and sweet shop! I also learned to do patchwork.
A lot of the work given to my mother was renovation. They would buy 陆 yard of material and say 鈥渃an you put a new collar and cuffs on a dress鈥� to make it look different. Torn parachutes were used for underslips and wedding dresses as they were make of silk. Flour bags were bleached and made into tablecloths 鈥� I remember one used for a wedding present, edged with a check material and flowers embroidered in each corner to match.
Sweets were rationed, but as Mrs Thomas was in business she was on good terms with other business people; Miss Woods kept a sweet shop next door to the school and had to keep going by selling notebooks, pencils, lucky bags filled with trinkets, etc. but every now and again she would have a delivery and she would let Mrs Thomas know and I would be sent over with the coupons. Quite often it turned out to be liquorice. Pontefract cakes which I loathed, so I didn鈥檛 eat many sweets during the war. The butcher would let Mrs Thomas know if he had half a pig鈥� head for her and she would make delicious brawn 鈥� however, the thought of it now makes my stomach turn. Surprising what seems good when things are in short supply. Because Miss Thomas had been a cook at Enys she made the most of any ingredients she got. She would make brawn, and she would put the milk on the side of the range and then skim off the cream and make a small pat of butter. I鈥檇 never had artichokes before (the ones like potatoes) but she would do them in a white sauce and they were lovely. Se always made ground coffee in a saucepan after Sunday lunch 鈥� Camp coffee the rest of the week.
At the beginning of September 1941 a land mine dropped on the causeway at Penryn and didn鈥檛 explode. The A.R.P. wardens knocked us all up and said we had to evacuate all our houses and leave the doors open so there would be less damage if it exploded. This is a really vivid memory for me. We had to go up to Mrs Thomas鈥� daughter-in-law鈥檚 house at the other end of the town. I remember walking up through Penryn鈥檚 main street in the moonlight, pas the town clock, in my nightdress and shoes and clutching a bundle of clothes not knowing if we would have a house and possessions to go back to.
Another night the fuel tanks at Swanvale were bombed and when the 鈥渁ll clear鈥� sounded we crowded out into the street and looked towards Falmouth. It looked as if the whole town was ablaze. Later in the war we had a lot of Americans in the area and if we passed a convoy of them they would throw out chewing gum to us. My social life revolved around St Gluvias Church and the Youth Clubs. After Sunday school a crowd of us used to walk up Church Hill, across Round Ring and down Truro Hill. The choir boys used to get cigarettes from the Americans. I tried to smoke my first cigarette 鈥� a Camel 鈥� at Round Ring and thank goodness the experience put me off smoking for life. When I compare my life to today鈥檚 children I realise how innocent we were to hold hands with one of the choir boys was really thrilling and it was really serious if we carved our initials in a heart on the bark of a tree. It was ecstasy if we gave each other a kiss playing Postman鈥檚 Knock or Spin the Bottle at a Church Social, so when one of the choirboys produced some condoms he had somehow got from the Americans, we really had no idea what they were for and they blew them up like balloons and let them drift up into a tree! We had no sex instructions and if someone was having a baby we youngsters only knew by straining our ears as adults whispered it to one another. However, I digress; it鈥檚 just my memories of my life during the war years. Penryn was my haven during those awful times and I love it.
During the war years I lived next door to my friend Sylvia and recently we were trying to recall what we did on V.E. day. Neither of us can remember anything special except the street party and the church bells being rung, but then she was 15 and I was 14; our lives centred on the Church Youth Club

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