大象传媒

59 - Jean Moore was aged 10 when War broke out:
"I was born at Chatham, 3rd of June 1929. My father was in the navy, so I say I was 鈥渓aunched鈥� I wasn鈥檛 christened, 鈥榗os I was christened in the Dockyard Church; we moved from there to Wembley when I was a year old, they managed to find the money, there wasn鈥檛 much around then, a little house which was 拢300, no furniture and I slept in the bath the first night apparently. And we were there until 1940.

I went to the local junior school in Wembley, played truant because I was bullied and hated school, had nightmares and things. And I had just done the first term at the senior school when 鈥� You see my father was a naval man, regular, but in between times, I don鈥檛 know how it happened but he was working for Handley Page at Cricklewood. He was an aeronautical engineer, so of course he wasn鈥檛 allowed to stay in, they had him out, and because of war, English Electric Fridges in Preston were put over to making planes. So he was sent up there, so we had to go to Preston during the war.

When War was declared I was walking home from school and an air-raid sounded. And I knocked on somebody鈥檚 door but there was nobody in, so I carried on walking home!
We might not even have had a radio then, my father was a very pinching man. If we did have a radio, I can remember we had to turn it off when he came home from work because he complained.

I can remember when he was away while we were still at Wembley, I used to sleep in bed with my mother, share, and we could see 鈥�, at the end of where the main road was there was a recreation ground and they did have searchlights in there, and I can remember them all whizzing and going over, but then as I say we moved up to Preston 鈥�40/鈥�41 winter I think it was, bitterly cold. But I used to come back to visit my grandmother, and I can remember getting off the tube and just having enough room to walk because of all the people sleeping. And coming out of the tube, and seeing a house, one of the old three or four storey houses with just enough wall left, and the piano was still against the wall and all the rest was gone.

I don't remember getting much bombing up there. Liverpool I suppose did, but Preston was further north than Liverpool wasn鈥檛 it, which I was surprized about when I found out.

The thing I remember about the war was before moving up there, because what happened when the war started, coloured the rest of my life literally. Because I was 10 I was too old to be evacuated, but because I was 10 my mother had to go out to work, direction of labour. And I had to come in, in the middle of winter, no central heating of course in those days, come in to an empty house at 10, put a blackout up at the window that my father had made, lino on a wooden frame, and put that up before I could switch the lights on, and I said to myself then if ever I have children when I鈥檓 grown up, I鈥檓 not letting them come in to an empty house, and that coloured what we did.
And then because a lot of the teachers went away with the evacuees, my schooling at the end of the time till we moved was part time, some mornings and some afternoons. Then of course mother had to find somebody to give me lunch, so that was another problem, and a very weird woman she was. If it was school in the afternoon, lunch was late, so we had to run to school and it was over a mile, which was a fair way. But if we were at school in the morning, we would have lunch as soon as we got back from school.

I think Mom went to work at Handley Page鈥檚, 鈥榗os she was secretarial work. When she was young she worked for - I can鈥檛 remember his name but the blind man, not Dunstan, but she worked in Regent鈥檚 Park or somewhere, worked for that organization.

Then we went to Preston as I say. But because the education was so different, I didn鈥檛 learn anything. And the only school I could get into, was a little village one, and I had to leave at 14 because that鈥檚 when everybody left. So my father got me a job at English Electric, which I hated, it was working a Gestetner machine, duplicating machine - very smelly.
Yes, horrid, hated it. But I was lucky, because I was 14, if I was 16 I couldn鈥檛 leave, but because I was I worked a fortnight and had to work a fortnight鈥檚 notice, left and got myself a job doing what I wanted to do, which was an apprentice to a tailor for 10/6d. a week,in Preston.

It wasn鈥檛 a written apprenticeship not like my husband had before the war as an engineer, but it was just sort of learning as you go along. He was just a back street one making men鈥檚 suits, and if he had somebody come in wanting a suit quickly for a funeral, he鈥檇 go into town, buy a Burton鈥檚 suit, and fill it with tacking and take it down for a fitting!
But I think I was born with a thimble on my finger, and I had these skills so he said I ought to move, so I went to a tailor in the town and learnt some more.
Then of course the war ended, my father was not needed any more, so he was kicked out and came back to London but instead of going back to Wembley, we stayed in the top part of my aunt鈥檚 house, my mother鈥檚 sister, Peckham, which had been bombed, there was a landmine on the church next door so that had to be repaired, and so we lived there.
And I got myself work. I have worked for all sorts of different people, as I say, finishing up working for Molyneaux, he was one of the ten, there was Digby Moreton, Norman Hartnell, Molyneaux and the other people, that鈥檚 when I made a coat for the Queen when I was there. And I also made a coat for Marina, Duchess of Kent when she opened some new gardens on the Embankment. But I have got to try and find out whether there鈥檚 a records office to try and get photographs of things that the newspapers have got, offices. I keep say I am going to do it, but 鈥�, tomorrow!

(Regarding the Queen's fitting) we didn鈥檛 do it. You have in the workrooms there are all sort of different 鈥�, you have got skirts, dresses, and we were in the coats department and we had a cutter who was Italian, Mr. Rossi, and I think Miss Chamberlain who was the cutter, so what you do, you get a piece of material, and you shrink it, you have to damp it all over both sides with a wet cloth and a very hot iron, put in a gas jet, and shrink it all over, then the cutter marks it all out, cuts it, you have it back, you thread mark it all, tack it together, then Mr. Rossi goes to the Palace and fits her, then it comes back to me with pins and chalk marks all over it and you undo it all, take it back and start making it. And then you get to another stage, and it goes up for another fitting, and comes back and you do a bit more, and then the third fitting, and then you finish it and you take it up for approval with your fingers crossed behind your back in case it鈥檚 alright.

Do you know I never gave him (the Italian) a thought. As I say we came back 鈥�45/46, and I don鈥檛 really know, I don鈥檛 know. But subject to that, my uncle, my mother鈥檚 brother in law, he was a policeman and he and his family went to the Isle of Man, looking after the internees on the Isle of Man during the war, so both families came back about the same time I suppose, yes.

I don鈥檛 remember much about where he went for his work or anything. I just remember going over one Christmas with my mother to spend Christmas with them, went over on the ferry from Fleetwood, and it was the worst journey I had in my life it was so rough, it was just somebody saying I can see Douglas that stopped me being sick! But it was quite an experience.

I wasn鈥檛 conscious of that (food shortages) at all really, no. I can remember being very short when we came back, 鈥榗os my uncle used to go and queue up at Rye Lane for bread and sausages and things. But again may husband was influenced by the war, because he was an articled apprentice and he worked for Hoves that used to make printing machines. So of course when the war started, he and his mates all went and volunteered and joined up, they went back and said we鈥檙e leaving - oh no you鈥檙e not, they were brought back because you are making machinery. And then as soon as the war was over and these machinery skills weren鈥檛 needed, they called him up, and then he got embarkation leave and was sent to Barry, so we always say Wales is a foreign country! But he was in the ARP during the war with an older man. They lived at Waterloo, just behind the station.

But he remembers 鈥�, he used to talk to me about walking around even before the war, and going down the sideslips down to the river and being scared stiff with the number of rats that there used to be.

But I say that if I had been able to stay at school, I would have been a genius, but nobody can argue can they. It would be nice to know wouldn鈥檛 it what you would have been capable of.
But then I always knew, from about the age of 9 that I wanted to do sewing, either do it or teach it or something.

I was a bit of a coward I suppose. I hadn鈥檛 got a lot of confidence and I was put on me too much work and I couldn鈥檛 cope. So instead of saying it, I just ran away. Gave my notice in, left the day the king died and I thought oh I鈥檒l go to the pictures this afternoon but of course all the cinemas were closed.
But I moved around a lot and I learnt a lot. One of the places I worked for, I think they were called 鈥淏uzzbinds鈥� and I was very much looked down on because most of the girls that were working there went to what was called trade school then, one day a week they would go to this school and I just had learnt through working with different people and picking up the best things from everybody, and they looked down on me because I hadn鈥檛 been to trade school. But I learnt a lot more I think doing it the way I did.

I met my husband on holiday. When we came back from Preston, I was still in touch with a friend that I met while I was at school, she was at the grammar school but she had to leave because her father died, and in those days civil servants didn鈥檛 get pensions, widow鈥檚 pensions so she had to leave school they couldn鈥檛 afford to stay, and we鈥檇 been in touch.
Well the first year she came down and stayed with me, and we saw about 4 different shows, Oklahoma, Bless the Bride and a couple of other ones I think, I don鈥檛 know how we managed to afford it but we did. And then the next year I went and stayed with her in Preston and toured around up there, and then she said well why not meet somewhere where we can both get to. So I said well you are used to working in offices and writing letters and things, you do the arranging, so she arranged this holiday and we met up at Ross on Wye and George was staying in the same place. He had come from Waterloo down to there on his own, 鈥榗os he was a bit of a loner, not miserable but just didn鈥檛 need lots of people, and he just sort of tagged on to the pair of us and he stuck to me for the next 53 years! He was a very good man.

He was an engineer. But his brother in law used to work for the newspapers but, and he said he could get him a job there if he wanted but George wouldn鈥檛 do it, because at that time there were very strong unions, and all Jim had to do was to be there in case the machines broke down, which of course they knew having made the machines. But to George that wasn鈥檛 work so he wouldn鈥檛 do it, and I thought well I could have made him but I knew he wouldn鈥檛 enjoy it and he was definitely a skilled man, that needed good work to do not just mass production or things like that.
And then he did his two years in the RAF, as I say just after the war, and he didn鈥檛 want to go back into engineering so he got a job as a caretaker for the little school where he had been as a boy and that鈥檚 what he was doing when I met him. And then of course we had nowhere to live, but his mother let us have a room in her flat, a two bedroomed flat, with no bath, a coal bunker half way along the corridor and one cold tap in the kitchen! And we were there for 4 years.
I married in 1950, and of course we wanted somewhere to live on our own, but you couldn鈥檛 get anywhere. We could have got a licence to get the materials but we literally didn鈥檛 have any money, because at that time he was only earning 拢7.10.00 a week and I was earning 拢4.10.00 making the Queen鈥檚 coat so we didn鈥檛 have any money, we weren鈥檛 able to take it up but at that time 鈥淩uggles鈥� in the Daily Mirror, they were having publicity about self build groups and that was when they first started, and we went to a meeting and there were over 100 people there, but anyway it finished up we stayed with the group, and it finished up with 24 of us and we literally built our own house as well as both working full time. Almost 3 years, the only day they had off was Christmas day and one afternoon when the weather was so bad they sent everybody home except the ones who were digging up the road to put the drains in on a Sunday, so that the road wasn鈥檛 closed for the people living there.

We built the house in Orpington, and they鈥檙e still up. I would love to see what it鈥檚 like now. So that was how we managed to get our own house, and the women used to go down, spend their summer holidays cooking for the men who were on holiday working.

When we first got the meetings going, an architect was going to be part of the group but he thought his only input was going to be the drawings and he was going to have this house built for him, but he was soon cleared on that point so he didn鈥檛 stay. But they鈥檙e still going, an association of self builders so we bought a set of plans from them. I was a bit disillusioned because I had bright ideas, in your twenties you have got pipe dreams haven鈥檛 you and hoping for things, and he had already given us four drawings, but of course some people liked the upstairs of that, and the downstairs of that so no agreement which was why they said right, we will get a set of plans instead to use. But when I looked at it I thought this is almost exactly the same as my mother鈥檚 house that she bought in 1930; a bit bigger, the fireplace was on the wall between the living room and the dining room rather than the party wall between the semi detached, but other than that there wasn鈥檛 much difference, I thought well in this amount of years things should have got a little bit brighter.
We were there for 16 years, and then as I say (I know this isn鈥檛 to do with the war), but we 鈥� stop me if I鈥檓 going on too long."

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