大象传媒

I was born in April 1939 on the edge of London at Norwood Green near Osterley, Middlesex. It wasn鈥檛 the best time to arrive and must have been a terrible worry to my mother when war was declared later in the year.

I was a toddler when the bombs constantly blew up other houses all around us and as I grew up, I had all these wonderful ruins to play in.

I remember my brother going off to be evacuated, my mother crying and him running away and the terror of him being lost and then found and taken off to another place. The second time, we went out to see the house first and it was an immaculate semi detached house with a whole box of TOYS under the stairs. I wanted to stay. Arthur didn鈥檛 and hollered and clung to mum. I was too young to be evacuated so had to go home back on the train, but I would have loved to have stayed with the toys because we never had any.

I can remember the Anderson shelter with love; it was like my own toy house because only Aunt Phyllis and I would go down there. My mother, (a woman full of all sorts of fears, including agoraphobia because her sister Eva shut her in a cupboard once) stayed in the cellar kitchen under the saucepan shelves, whenever there was a raid on. In the early days of the war, my sister used to run out in the fields rather than be buried alive but she fell into an evil smelling ditch once in the dark. As soon as she was old enough she went into the Land Army. I loved the damp, sweet smell of the shelter.

My first sentence was 鈥渢um along siren鈥檚 gone鈥� Once when my brother was home, he dragged me out of the shelter in the night to pick up the shrapnel that fell like hot, metal rain. Lights from the defence crew in Osterley Park darted all over the sky and the Ack Ack guns stationed in the park were a target for the enemy so we often got bombed. Once it was very close and I woke up alone with fire in the street and the glass from the windows all over my bed. I couldn鈥檛 hear anything because my ears were blasted and I crawled out of bed onto splintered glass. I was screaming but couldn't hear just smell the burning window frames and sense the terror. I was probably only two years old and went into the living room. My mother and sister were under the table and my aunt Phyllis came down from upstairs looking like a ghost 鈥� she had been putting her hair in curlers when the ceiling had fallen in, and she was covered with plaster.

Pretty Miss Walker from the chemist was killed that night and she always said she didn鈥檛 mind dying as long as she was all in one piece, sadly she wasn鈥檛 because they found her legs on the rubbish heap weeks after she was killed. I liked Miss Walker, she always had a smile for the children.

We went into a public shelter once when the sirens went and there was a man with puppet trying to entertain the crowds who were stuffed shoulder to shoulder into the tiny space, it smelt dreadful and everyone was trying to shut up the man near the door who probably thought he was a great entertainer but was absolutely dreadful. My mother, said "Thank God he isn't trying to sing as well". I got into a bunk with the girl from next door. Her name was Betty Green and she was dying from TB. I often went to her house because she always had kittens and puppies to play with and a big coal fire. Everyone else's fires was barely alight.

There came a time when we kept chickens and when the bombs dropped they all flew up onto the roof of the house and stayed there for days till a neighbour home from leave helped to get them down. Our only toilet was at the bottom of the garden and you had to get through the chickens first. The white rooster was a dreadful bird and pecked my legs and with me being so small, it could fly into my face 鈥� my sister said it wanted to peck my eyes out. So I had to get someone to take me to the toilet, right up until I was five years old.

My oldest brother was a rear end gunner (tail end charlie) on the Halifax planes and when he came home on leave, he would just walk past us silently and go up to his room and sleep 鈥� his face was tense all the time and I can鈥檛 ever remember him saying a word. The strain must have been unbelievable. I never saw my father until I was six years old. He was in the RAF too.

Our house was opposite the church of St Mary and we went regularly until the vicarage was bombed and the vicar went away. We got another vicar who was really nice but he didn鈥檛 live at vicarage, because it was too damaged and what was left of it was boarded up. It gave us a shock that, if God could bomb the vicarage what hope was left for us? Mother was a keen churchgoer and took over looking after the kitchen garden and the vicar鈥檚 pigs. We ate an awful lot of fruit and vegetables in those days and it had an orchard too with cherry trees. She kept the whole garden immaculate and being a farmer鈥檚 daughter knew how to care for pigs. When the vicar came back she was awarded the title of Best Wartime Housewife of the village.

The Italians were always around because their prison camp was in Osterley Park along with the big guns. Bit unfair that really. When my sister was home, they were always in the house, one of them quite liked my mother too I think. They made a big fuss of me and I was always picked up and cuddled and kissed to bits. They brought round beautiful homemade bread and one Christmas we had nothing much to eat they bought a live chicken. I woke up in the night to hear feet running down the hall into the kitchen and a chicken clucking. I asked my mother about it but she denied it emphatically.

The Italians were well tolerated, no one ever thought that they wanted to be in the war.

Then the war came to an end, the Italians all gathered on the village green to wait being picked up and transferred home to Italy. As they stood in groups under the elm trees, they started to sing. My sister ran back to get us and we and our neighbours rushed to hear them and wept to hear these men sing Ariva derci Roma and Mama Mia with all the emotion of men who been kept away from home for so long. Their voices were powerful and strong and broken with tears and the people of the village wept with them. I saw the troop carriers and buses arrive to take them away.

So, I suppose, my most enduring memory is of the enemy singing.

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