大象传媒

my name was Lillian Margaret Rose Segal and I was born on the 5th November 1930 in Aldgate, London E1. My paternal grandparents were Russian and Polish Jews, my maternal grandparents, my grandmother was welsh and my grandfather was Irish. When the war broke out I was 9 years old, I had a brother Gerald, who was nearly 11, but he has since passed away.
On September 1st 1939, we were taken to the station with our school teachers, we were given gas masks, which I hated, my mother had made some sandwiches for us both, but we were given a bag which contained tin corned beef and a drink and a few other sandwiches. Unfortunately, my brother had the sandwiches that mum had made for us and we were put into different groups, I was going to Crawley,Sussex, and my brother was going to Horley, Surrey. I started to cry as I wanted to be with my brother,we were very close and still were until he passed away, plus he had the sandwiches, because of this we were put together and another child was put in my place. When we arrive at Horley in Surrey we were taken to a school in Lumlay Road, then people came and chose who they wanted, I went with another little girl who was also seperated from her brother, so we were both upset. The lady we went to was very nice, she was paid 12s/6p, for each child. We were not very happy their s the lady also had children and they were jealous of us, so the other girl and I were moved on. I went to a Methodist Minister and his family, he was not a nice man, as I was christened a Roman Catholic, so they moved me from there. We went to school sometimes, but most of the times spent in our air raid shelters as the Germans were after Gatwick Airport, and we were quite close to it. It was a nice place though Horley as being a London child I had not seen any of the countryside or animals. I went to a nice lady whose husband was a soldier and had twins, a boy and a girl, I slept in the girls room, and had a nice time there,and we all got on very well. But of course I was missing my brother very much, and I used to get quite upset a lot. We had to carry our gas masks around all the time and had to practice putting them on in case of a gas alert, During school time the sirens would go off and we had to go to the shelter which was not all that nice, sometimes there was not enough sitting room for us all so we had to sit on the floor which was quite cold, as they were built of cement, we could have been in there for quite a while as sometimes the raids were very long. We were always glad when they were over. Then we would all march back to school. I stayed with this family for quite a while, then I went to my grans in South Wales, while I was they unfortantly we were bomed out, my gran was given a small house, so I went back to my mum who by then had been moved to Chester from the Woolwich Arsenal area of London, because it was dangerous and much more safer in Chester, it was also where my stepfather worked. We used to have raids there but not as bad, although the enemy passed over Chester for the Liverpool Docks, so that was quite frightening. My mum had an anderson shelter in the living room so I slept in that, it was quite small though something similar to a cage. I went to school until I was 14 years old, which was in 1944, and the war was over in 1945. I went to work in a local shop untill I was 18 years old, and then I joined the WAAFS, I stayed in the WAAFS for 3 years and had a happy time there.

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