大象传媒

[Sisters Jean Taylor and Pamela Gavey (nee Gould)had been evacuated to Paisley. Two years later they moved to Bradford to be with their mother and brother in their aunt鈥檚 house]

It was strange to be in England, hearing different accents and living in a different way. In Scotland, Pamela and I had shared a bedroom. In Bradford, my Aunt and Uncle were living in a two and a half bedroom house with a bathroom, largish kitchen-cum-dining-room and a sitting room. Pamela and I shared a single bed in a room with my cousin Betty and Olive, who was my cousin John's girl friend. John himself was in the Royal Air Force as was Olive's brother Ronnie. My mother slept in the small boxroom over the door.
My Uncle worked on the trams and trolley buses in Bradford. My Aunt ran the home and she made all the bread, buns etc. and she worked really hard. It must have been quite a sacrifice for them to take in my mother and her children because that summer my brother Ronald had come to visit from Cheshire. He was fourteen and my Aunt and Uncle thought he should go to work to help my mother and he wanted to do so and to stay with us. So it was decided he could stay and for the next three years he slept in the front room on a mattress on the floor, rolled up during the day, He went to work in a small workshop in Queensbury.

In the evening, my Aunt and Uncle sat in the front room and the rest of us stayed at the kitchen table and did various things. We listened to the radio - no television in those days and went to bed at nine o'clock. My mother used to knit and Pamela started knitting - a skill I never developed myself, I used to draw and make little cardboard figures and design clothes for them - the kind that had two flaps which went over the shoulders. My ambition at that time was to be a dress designer. Needless to say, I never did. My mother was working in a factory at that time and left home very, very early to walk down into the valley where it was situated. Olive worked at the same place.

My cousin Betty worked in Bradford's covered market on a stall selling dress and coat materials. Bradford was a wonderful place for cloth of all kinds.

Betty took us to Wibsey Modern School which she had left a year previously and introduced us to the Headmaster, Mr. Mann. Wibsey was a completely different school to the Paisley Grammar but we loved it. Pamela was there for two years and I was there for three. Pamela had the prize for the girl with the best character. It was the book "Oliver Twist". I was lucky enough to become the very first Head Girl in my last year there. We had a new Headmaster then as Mr. Mann had finally to retire and Mr. Evans had some new ideas.

Our teachers were mostly elderly ladies who had come out from retirement for the duration of the war. They were red hot on discipline but that is so important for children who want to work and learn. At this school, we did domestic science and, despite rationing, we learned to cook all sorts of things and we also did laundry. We had a huge furnace with dozens of flat irons on ledges all the way around, No electric irons then or soap' powder. We queued up with mugs and the teacher poured boiling water on to slices of green soap.

On Sundays, the whole family often went for long walks. I can remember we went to Bronte country - Ilkley Moor and on to Wuthering Heights - and another time we walked all along the canal to Skipton. We had bottles of water or lemonade and some of Auntie's wonderful sugary buns. We really missed the sea and sometimes we walked around the reservoir as a rather poor substitute. I do remember going to Saltaire and paddling in a little brook. We took great pleasure in anything which reminded us of home.

Our contact with Dad at this time consisted of only a very few Red Cross messages of a twenty or so words. My parents had been parted in their early thirties and it must have been so hard for them - such a long five years. They were, however, completely faithful to each other - a very good example to all their children.

As we had done in Scotland, we made many good friends in those years. My special friend was Dora Hood, now Dora Waugh, and we are still friends and saw each other in 1999. Betty started to do dressmaking at that time and we also had coats made by a local dressmaker. One of the real difficulties in my case were shoes and it was almost impossible for my mother to buy them to fit me. I can remember having to wear a pair of blue suede clogs which were so painful to someone not brought up to wear them.

The year before we came home, John returned from abroad and decided that he and Olive should be married. It was all arranged in a week. Extra rations were given at that time and Betty, Pamela and I were to be bridesmaids. Pamela and I had turquoise dresses and I had brown lace-up shoes. Can you imagine, a bridesmaid with brown lace-up shoes!!

Olive moved into the small room and my mother moved into the large bedroom with Betty, Pamela and me. It was hard for my mother to give up that last little bit of privacy.

Shortly afterwards, Olive announced her pregnancy and our numbers increased when Pat was born the following May. Auntie looked after the baby and Olive went back to the factory. I often took Pat out in her pram to give Auntie Hilda a rest.

Pamela went to work in the market with Betty for the last year of the war. She was still so tiny that she had to stand on a box behind the rolls of material. Every evening when we went up to bed she did so sitting on my back. I would tease her and make her scream with words from one of the 鈥淩oad鈥� films. "Slowly I turned 鈥�..鈥�
Ronald used to spend his spare time at the cinema and, he used to weep at 鈥淢y Friend Flicka" and the "Lassie" films, He used to come home with his sleeve wet. His life was quite restricted at that time - he had nothing like the freedom enjoyed by present day teenagers.
Uncle Jack was very much in charge of everyone, with Auntie Hilda doing his bidding. It must have been very difficult to keep things going with such a large household in a small house.

Pamela and I had school dinners and when Pamela went to work she, like the others at work, took sandwiches with her. Auntie used to make a spread which we called "Spondulix". It was made of biscuit crumbs and almond essence and I don't know what. I loved the school dinners - they were excellent for a growing girl. We had free dinners because of my mother's circumstances and I had to go into another classroom to collect the vouchers and also free bus tokens. I can't say I ever felt embarrassment at having to do this.

It was really wonderful to hear Winston Churchill say in May 1945 that "our dear Channel Islands will be free today". It so happened that on that day we had a chimney fire and were in a real mess.

At school we started learning lots of new songs and we gave a Victory Concert in a large Hall down in the Town itself with other Bradford Schools.

Jean Taylor and Pamela Gavey

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