大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by Marie on behalf of Mollie and has been added to the site with her permission. Mollie fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

The following are extracts from accounts Mollie wrote for her granddaughter Orianne's school project.

I returned to Springhill only to find that I had missed my opportunity to sit for the Scholarship while I was away. I was very disappointed, as were my parents. By this time my mother was doing her war work in Supermarine's aircraft factory. She decided that she would use her some of her earnings to send me to St Anne's Secondary School for Girls (as it was called at the time), but - I had to pass an entrance exam. This meant going to the school and sitting in a small room, wondering what on earth I would be expected to do. I don't remember, though I do recall being late, because on that, of all mornings, I overslept. The rest of the family had gone to work quite early, after a night disturbed by an air raid.

In the event, all was well and midway between Easter and Whitsun, I was accepted as a pupil at the evacuated school in Bournemouth - almost back where I had started the war. I was within cycling distance of my grandparents and aunts and cousins. I often spent the weekends with them when all the cousins and their friends used to have great fun with impromptu parties or board games and playing cards.

My billet this time was a pre-war seaside boarding house run by Mrs Williams, a widow, and her grown-up daughter, Mary, there was Tony, a son of 8, too, who was not very popular with us girls. We thought him a spoilt brat who told - sometimes exaggerated - tales on us! There were no seaside holidays on our stretch of the south coast during the war because of the scaffolding barricades with barbed wire along the beaches. These were to be defences against any invasion and were backed by low cliffs which no-one was allowed to go down. There, in Beaulieu Road, Alum Chine, we were five minutes' walk away from the cliff top, a favourite place for many of us to go. I found it so very frustrating, because the next beach along, Branksome Chine, had been 'our' beach when staying with our cousins in pre-war summer holidays. It was my playground and I longed to get down there and swim and build sand castles, but all I could do was look. There are several of these 'chines' between Bournemouth and Poole Harbour. They are fairly short, rather steep-side wooded valleys with a stream leading to the sea. Alum Chine had a suspension bridge across from the bottom of our short road. We used to jump up and down on it to make it bounce. Then we were told off, because if it had been broken all the local people, including us, would have had a much longer walk into the middle of Bournemouth. All this meant that the 'seaside landladies' no longer had an income, and so, many of them took in evacuees.

During my three and a half years there we varied in numbers from 25 to 38 (which was a squeeze), with two teachers in charge of us - both nuns with a sense of humour. (Once grown-up, I realised what an onerous and all-consuming task that was, and they survived, just!) One was tall and slim and could stride out, the other was short and dumpy and had to make an effort to keep up, with her head bent down in concentration. You can imagine how we used to giggle if we were walking behind them, also struggling to keep pace! It was like being in a boarding school, where living with a crowd of girls aged 11-16 was an education in itself We made friends, learned the differences between people, learned to share, be thoughtful to others and give and take in various ways, because there were so many of us. It helped to make me the person I am.

Some of us had single beds, some shared a double. Some were in large, front-facing rooms, others in smaller ones looking out on the back garden and the trees in the chine. Still others were in the attics, quite large rooms with sloping ceilings. Their windows caught the last of the light in the evenings and we would stand by them and read until we couldn't see any more. In summertime that was very late because we had double summer time, to save electricity. We daren't switch on the light because it would be seen under the door and we would be in trouble, as we were supposed to be asleep. The rooms held anything from one to eight of us: you see what I mean by sharing - seldom could you be alone. There was an indoor air raid shelter in a downstairs room, a large round metal box that we had to crawl into. There were practices, almost like playing 'sardines', though it was never used for real. They were called Morrison shelters, after the Home Secretary of the day, Herbert Morrison. Outdoor shelters for putting partly underground in people's gardens were called Anderson shelters (I don't know who Anderson was).The silly thing was that we all went home for school holidays and were allowed home for the weekend if our parents wished. This in spite of the fact that Southampton was still having bombing raids - the whole reason for being evacuated. We all wanted to go home, though, regardless. A great advantage of communal living was that there was always someone to help with homework if you were stuck, especially from those in higher classes. This made all the difference to me as I had over two terms' work in new subjects to make up. Our French was given a boost because there would often be chat that included words and phrases we had recently used and we would listen to the older girls, too, absorbing more.

Those who were there on Saturdays - most of us, but only on occasion for me, were obliged to go for a walk with the nuns. This was to ensure we had fresh air and exercise. The walk was usually from Alum Chine to Sandbanks, on the edge of Poole Harbour, along the coast road with occasional glimpses of the sea. At Sandbanks we were allowed to run around and perhaps play rounders before walking back. If I remember rightly it took a good hour each way. There were beautiful houses along that road, in fact around the whole area. Today it is a millionaire's row, with various famous people living there. At Christmas time we were allowed to go carol singing for charity along The Avenue, where in later years the DJ Tony Blackburn lived. (Before your time, Orianne!) There was another diphtheria scare, too, and once again I stood at a basin being supervised using the unpleasant ink tasting gargle. We had a hot meal at lunchtime, and a cooked breakfast on Sundays, otherwise it was porridge (good at the beginning of the week, nasty by the end), and bread and 'scrape,' as we used to call it, for breakfast. Tea time was again bread and margarine and whatever spreads we were able to bring from home. The favourites were golden syrup, jam, marmite and small tins of blackcurrant puree. The number of slices depended on which year you were in, from two to six slices of bread.

The school sometimes arranged school visits for us, to the Russell Coates Museum which was interesting, to the Pavilion Theatre, which was fun, and one summer day we all went to a country place by a stream, close to the edge of Bournemouth, called Throop, where we had games and a picnic. Those of us with bicycles were allowed to cycle, the others going by bus. I enjoyed that and the other rides I did, alone or with someone else from Beaulieu Road (as our billet was always called). That was the real beginning of my lifelong attachment to cycling. Evacuation gave me so much.

One occurrence, though was not so enjoyable, though it was exciting in its way. It must have been Spring 1944, lunchtime on a beautiful warm Sunday. My friend and I had walked to the top of the
cliff at Alum Chine to pass the time before our midday meal when suddenly there was a great roar of aircraft engines. We looked up at the sky, then our eyes caught sight of two planes just above the cliff top- our eye level- coming in just along the cliff to the centre of Bournemouth. We could see the German cross on the fuselage as plainly as anything. They flew inland and very soon after we heard an explosion and there were the planes on their way back over the cliffs. It was all so quick - out of nowhere, whoomph! and gone. We turned to look across to the middle of the town and saw a great plume of blackness rising straight up into the sky and we wondered what had been hit in this place that was supposed to be safe for all the schools evacuated there. We learned that a hotel full of American troops had a direct hit with a great loss of life. There were many troops in Bournemouth at that time, especially Americans (G.I.s). We were discouraged from going into town, which I well understood as I grew older. It is no joke being responsible for other people's teenagers. This was in the run-up to D-Day and clearly the Germans had inside information and acted on it, as one would expect in wartime Later on, Bournemouth Bay was full of ships at anchor for some days, then one day they had gone, the Bay once again assuming its usual tranquil appearance. Then, we were allowed to listen to the radio news on the invasion of France, - so, that was where the ships had gone. I would not have seen all that if I had been at home.

We shared a lovely school for girls at Talbot Heath, on the northern edge of Bournemouth. It was a twenty-five minute walk, finishing up a steep hill, or a ten-minute dash, or a fifteen-minute leisurely cycle ride for those few fortunate enough to have a bicycle (including me). There were playing fields, a gym, domestic science room, unused then because of food rationing, science labs, a needlework room and a large assembly hall with an excellent stage. Here I learned algebra (not very good), geometry (very good), French (struggled, but became good), hockey and tennis (both good) which were all new to me. As well as all the other usual subjects the school arranged swimming for us in an indoor pool a fair cycle ride away, which we enjoyed.

The war affected school life in various ways. Shortages of all sorts of things - partly because so much had to brought in by sea, which was dangerous ,also because extra supplies were needed for the forces - meant that pencils had to be used right down till you couldn't hold them any more, our rough work exercise books had to be completely full - they were inspected for any little unused spaces before we could have a new one. We had to write letters home even if there wasn't much to say. The days of dipping scratchy nibs into inkwells had gone, as most of the girls were using fountain pens. Ball point pens had not been invented but fountain pens were a great improvement, though we needed to have a bottle of ink available in desk or satchel. There was Stephen's, black or dark blue, and Quink, a very pleasant mid blue. It was a bit more expensive, but was my favourite. There were air raid practices, when an alarm would sound and we all had to go outside the school as quickly as possible and line up to be counted from the register. Then we went into the outside underground shelters in an orderly fashion and silence. (So that instructions could be heard.) One thing that I doubt happens in schools today, now that we know more about it, was that in a science lesson we were allowed to play with little balls of mercury in order to understand what it could do - great fun.

By September 1944 it was clear that we were at little risk of bombing in Southampton, so the school said farewell to Bournemouth and returned home at Christmas. So for the last seven months of the war I went to school from home. The building was entirely unknown to me, some of it a great deal older than Talbot Heath and there wasn't room for playing fields although there were netball and tennis courts. We did have a newer block with a laboratory and geography room among other things. There, in 1945, I sat the exams for the School Certificate, which corresponds to today's GCSE. We had to take a French oral exam with an outside examiner who came to the school. It was a very pleasant day as we waited our turn in the playground. There was just one drawback, for the examiner as well as for us. It was 8th May, V.E. Day - the day the whole country celebrated the end of the war in Europe, and on which all other schools were closed, the pupils having a day off to enjoy, including all the rest of St Anne's. By the time September and the new school year had arrived we had also celebrated VJ Day on 15th August. The victory over Japan brought about the true end of the war, though shortages of many things, including paper, meant we still had to show our full exercise books to the teacher in order to have a new one. It also brought about the reinstatement of the sixth form, so I was able to stay on till I was 18 to take the Higher Education Certificate (like today's A levels). Had the war still been going on my education would have been cut short. I have much to be grateful for, not least my mother's willingness, indeed desire, to give me the best education she could. My life would have been very different otherwise.

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