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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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The Council Had Ordered Hundreds and Hundreds of Wooden Boxes

by Somerset County Museum Team

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Archive List > Childhood and Evacuation

Contributed by听
Somerset County Museum Team
People in story:听
Schoolgirl Pauline Sturgess and her family
Location of story:听
Stratford East, London and West Mersea, Essex
Background to story:听
Civilian
Article ID:听
A8820560
Contributed on:听
25 January 2006

DISCLAIMER:
This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Phil Sealey of the Somerset County Museum Team on behalf of Pauline Sturgess and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions

鈥淚 was 10 when war broke out. We were evacuated a week before war was declared and I remember the place we were evacuated to. They called us into the living room, my brother and I, and we were told to listen to the radio as something very serious was happening. That was when it was announced that from eleven o鈥檆lock that morning we would be at war with Germany. It didn鈥檛 mean much to us then because we knew we were there because there was going to be a war, and that was it. Not long after that the sirens went and everybody thought, oh goodness, it鈥檚 all going to start. Of course, it was a false alarm and then we went back to normal life, as normal as it could be when you were evacuated.
The whole school went to this place in Essex, called West Mersea. We had to stand there in this school and we were picked out, like a load of cattle, and they said, 鈥榳e鈥檒l have these two鈥, or 鈥榳e鈥檒l have that one鈥. My brother and I were picked together because they did ask that we could be.
As Londoners they imagined we鈥檇 be dirty and need a bath as soon as we arrived, and we鈥檇 probably have lice on our heads. In my case they were quite surprised, we were neat and tidy as my mother was very particular. My mother was a very good dressmaker and made our clothes and I think that surprised them. But that was the general attitude towards most of the children, so it wasn鈥檛 a very happy time for us, we had to go to school for the time we were there and try to carry on with life. Our parents and relatives were allowed to visit us from time to time and take us out for the day. After a few months with nothing happening, what they called the 鈥榩honey war鈥, most East London parents brought their children back. The children were homesick, I know we were homesick, and they thought they might just as well have them home as nothing was happening. We went back home just in time for the Blitz to start. Living near the London docks, the East India docks, etc., there were daylight raids and we could actually see the dogfights going on and we could see when a plane 鈥 we could never tell whether it was ours or a German plane 鈥 came spiralling down and crashed somewhere. That was quite frightening, and the gunfire, of course, was also frightening.
We had an Anderson shelter in the garden. My mother made it as comfortable as she could; we had bunk beds down there and a light, and food. This was the daylight raids, and it wasn鈥檛 until later on we had the night raids when it would start as soon as it was dark, about 7 o鈥檆lock. We鈥檇 have our tea because we鈥檇 know the sirens would go at a certain time, we鈥檇 hurry with our tea and get all our things together. We had to take our blankets with us because you couldn鈥檛 leave blankets and things in the shelter, they would get damp. So we had to have everything ready, we鈥檇 pick it all up, go down to the shelter and make ourselves comfortable, knowing full well the raid was going to start at any time.
We had a little radio down there, it must have been a battery radio, and we would listen to Tommy Handley and various other radio programmes. Then you鈥檇 prepare for the thump, thump, thump of the guns going when the raiders were overhead. Sometimes, after the sirens had gone, you could peer out of the shelter and see the searchlights. When the bombs were near you鈥檇 know it because the earth would shake and you鈥檇 wonder. Of course, by that time you were well inside the shelter, we weren鈥檛 allowed to look out then, and you never knew whether it would be our house or our neighbours. We just had to wait and see what it was going to be like in the morning.
Sometimes it was quite a shock because you鈥檇 come out and the windows in the house would be smashed, and there was all the clearing up to do. Or there would be bits of the ceiling fallen down when the house had been shaking when the bomb had been near. Before you could do anything else all the glass had to be cleared up, boarding put up at the windows until you could do something about it. Mother had to get us ready for school just the same, things had to go on. We had to trot off to school walking past bombed buildings where the demolition men were still, perhaps, digging people out. It was all roped off of course, and we would see all this horror around us, it was part of our life.
We didn鈥檛 see much of our father because he was in the ARP. He was what they called heavy-duty squad, which helped with the demolition and also rescue, rescuing people who were buried underneath. He must have seen some awful sights but he didn鈥檛 talk about it very much, he was too shocked I think to talk about it.
One thing I can remember him saying to mother was that, just before the war, the council had ordered hundreds and hundreds of wooden boxes, which would be used for coffins, and they would be used, they knew it was coming. They were all stacked up in a big room somewhere ready to be used; they were prepared for it.
My mother had much to worry about, going out and queuing up. When there was something in the shops rumours would spread, word would go round very quickly amongst the neighbours that a certain shop had perhaps oranges in, or something quite scarce, and the queue would start. She would be out there sometimes for hours in the queue. The butcher, maybe, would have some sausages that day and you had to queue for that, everybody got used to queuing. On a Saturday I would be asked to go and stand in a queue because somebody had something off ration. You鈥檇 go and queue to get a couple of things to help with the ration.
My mother was a good cook and she made do with lots of things. We didn鈥檛 always like it very much; I hated brawn, I really couldn鈥檛 stand it, but there you are, you had to have it, you had it with mashed potato and you just had to put up with it because it was good for you, and that was all we could have. But we never went hungry. I still hate brawn because it brings back memories. They had a pig鈥檚 head and would boil it down as broth and put vegetables in, it may not always have been palatable but it was healthy.
We had a little bit of a garden but the only thing my father decided was we鈥檇 have to have some rabbits, but they weren鈥檛 as pets, I鈥檓 afraid. They were kept for so long and then they were food. I didn鈥檛 like that, but you had to do something. I never knew how they died but my father was pretty expert at finishing them off, humanely, my mother would have seen to that. Rabbit was pretty good to have at the weekend.
I did manage to get a scholarship and go to secondary school. I had much further to go to the secondary school. You had to walk; you couldn鈥檛 just get on a bus. We still had to do homework as best we could, the air raids put paid to some of it, but you got it done as quickly as you could.
My mother was wonderful; she could turn things, like collars on shirts. I remember her going to jumble sales and bringing something home and within a few hours there was something almost like new. I don鈥檛 take after her I鈥檓 afraid. We always had decent clothes and shoes.
Towards the end of the war 鈥 it is difficult to remember the years 鈥 when I was fifteen the war was still on in the Far East and I started training as a children鈥檚 nurse in a day nursery. Mothers were still going out to work then and bringing their children in for the whole day. I was just a trainee but it was very enjoyable, it was still wartime and rationing. That was an experience having to work in a day nursery. Mothers still doing war work, fetching their children at five or six o鈥檆lock in the evening, quite a long day, not like the nurseries now - pre-school. This went on simply because mothers had to work.
I remember the war in Europe ending, the street parties they were fun. They had fancy dress, rows and rows of tables and somebody brought a piano out into the street.
At the end of the war in the East, VJ Day, I went with my aunt to London to join in the celebrations there. That was, in a way, quite frightening, all the people and the jostling, but they were all so happy you didn鈥檛 worry about being mugged or anything like that then. Everyone was happy, enjoying themselves, joining hands and doing the conga, it was a very happy time.
Rationing still went on and we had some hard times, but at least you knew we weren鈥檛 going to have the bombs anymore.
I stayed in London for a while after the war then I moved in with an aunt. I went to other day nurseries as I鈥檇 finished my training and went on to be a fully-fledged nursery nurse. The day nurseries finished when there was no need for them.
I went on to other things and ended up in the Wrens, that鈥檚 a different story. I was there nearly three years, married a sailor, of course, and came out. I was demobbed in the fifties. Then in a roundabout way my life brought me down to Somerset.鈥

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