大象传媒

Greenwich is where I was born,March29 1935.My mother was pianist and assistant dance teacher in her mothers song and dance school somewhere in SE5 district of south London.My father was a master plasterer.Just one day before my third birthday father enlisted into the army,it was 28March 1938,mother and father had in fact seperated.For me it meant more time in the care of the local Council nursery in Brockley.During the Munich crisis summer of 1938,the London county council decided to have a mini-evacuation,this involved the Southwark part of south London,and included my nursery school.I have only very vague memories of this experience as I was then only three and half,but my mother told me in later years that I was"sent to Sidcup",.I have investigated this with the imperial war museum who confirm that indeed Brockley area nursery would have been included.I have included this very brief and sparce account as it is not very well known that some of us were evacuated a year before the war started in Sep39.For me it was to be the first of five evacuations. Well here we go with an account of my second evacuation experience,it has taken me a long time to research this one as when it happened I was only 41/2 years old.All of these evacuation stories are difficult for some of us to describe fully as we came under the name of accompanied infants,or so we are informed,but believe me when I tell you that not all of us infants were accompanied.I am not sure who put me on the train,but I have found by researching local papers etc,that when the first mass evacuations took place,[Sept 1939 as war started]many of us from S.E London embarked on several trains that went south to Portsmouth and,after picking up more evacuee children there went on through Southampton to the New Forest and deposited us all at Brockenhurst I believe where we were ushered into the car park and divided into three groups,my group was to be billeted in and around Totton,not far fron Southampton and in fact I found myself billeted in the attic room of a large bungalow in Jacobs Gutter Lane in Houndsdown district.It was probably the most traumatic billet experience,for the woman had no interest in me whatsoever,evn though I developed Whooping Cough.I was lucky eventually in that my father who was in the Royal Artillery had obtained a weekend pass,and having walked for miles in full military uniform[he got of the train in Southampton] found where I was and was so upset at my state of health sent telegram to my mother telling her to get me out.I have never forgotten having terrible coughing attacks and of the woman downstairs continually shouting up to me to,"shut up,we cant get to sleep down here."My father died in 1975,and it was because he left details of where the billeting house was that I was able to locate it after a long and tedious search in various libraries in Hampshire and through the kindness of some of the surviving old folk who still live in Jacobs Gutter Lane.When I located the bungalow,I could not hold back the tears.I have allways had a fascination with birds,why?,it was an owl which helped me to put up with the ordeal of it all! the owl would regularly perch on the ledge outside[I have just stopped for a while because the tears have come back again and I have to pull myself together].To me as a lonely infant, the owl was a comfort,,I used to talk to it and believed that it was looking at me as it swivelled its head in the way that owls do,and appeared to understand my situation!Recounting this experience has allways been difficult for me,but it has to be done so that the truth is out,namely, that some of had awfull evacuation experiences and indeed were perhaps lucky to survive.I need a break now,next time I will tell of my mothers and of my own happy and also sad time in Devon 1940.

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