大象传媒

I was 8 when the war started and that was the year I left Spencer Infants School ready to go to St James Junior School.

Because the evacuees were coming we could not go to school so we went only one hour in the morning, we use to go on nature walks while they were sorting out the evacuees. Us kids, we loved it. I don鈥檛 think we learned much that year. This went on for months.

Then in 1941 my oldest sisters were having babies they had to work in the shoe factories making army boots. That year they opened a nursery school for little children in Victoria Park 鈥揵y then I was 10 I had to take three children ( aged 3 months,18 months, and 2 years) there each morning at 7.30, it was pitch dark (they use to alter the clocks by two hours then). I had an old head on my shoulders because of this, it was ever so dark in the mornings. They were all put into one pram. The Nursery was there for some years.

My mother took in two evacuees from the East End of London there names were Ted Holloway and John Law. We did not have much childhood because there was so much responsibility looking after the children at 14

I started work at Mendles, in the Arcade, when I was fourteen on 13th August, this was two days before the Japanese war ended. It was a Jewish firm making coats and costumes.

On VE day we had parties in the street and my mum took the piano out in to the street and the Americans came around to join in the celebrations. Everybody collected what rations they could to make cakes.

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