大象传媒

Second section of 11 year olds World War 11 memorary. Ellen Smithers from Poplar to Berkshire.

I remember getting onto a big lorry early one morning. It was fairly hot. We must have resembled the Hill Billy family, all of us sitting on the back of the lorry. Loaded with an assortment of what had been salvaged, I remember the piano, table, chairs, China jug and bowl set. We only had the clothes we stood up in. There was about ten of us. Mum, Dad, my brother, my sister, my uncles Ern, George, Archie, my Aunt Sarah and myself.
Even my Uncle Arch鈥檚 terrier dog called Terry, Granny鈥檚 bulldog called Bruce, even granny鈥檚 parrot came to.

The poor parrot had been left in the house when the bomb went off, as the police would not allow Dad to go back into the house to get him. The poor thing had been blown out of his cage when the bomb went off. He was found sitting on the fire guard among the rubble shouting Mother! Mother!
The parrot survived and we took him to Berkshire, he even returned to London after the war to live with my Gran. I remember I would torment him when I visited my gran before the war, I would try to push him off his perch with a stick and he would shout Mother, my gran would then know I was tormenting him and tell me off.

On the journey down we stopped a country pub for some lunch and to stop the dogs chasing the landlords chicken the dogs were tied to the legs of the piano on the lorry. Well the bulldog ended up over the tailgate by his collar, he nearly hung himself. So my Uncle had to let him off and there was a lot of chasing before we got him back on the lorry. I think we had sausages for lunch.

We all moved into 2 White Wall Cottages, Compton, Nr Newbury Berkshire which was a 2 up 2 down cottage. There was 28 of us in all. The men slept in one room, the women in another and the children in another. All these children were my cousins. We used to play games in the fields which were opposite the cottage which was heaven compared to London. Of course with so many cousins there were a few arguments amongst us. However as my sister, brother and I were the eldest children we ruled. We did not mind sleeping on the floor we were so used to it, to be away from the London Bombing was like another world.

However we had not been down in Compton for very long when we heard German planes. During our time in London we had come to recognise the difference between a German bomber and our planes.
The German bombers were trying to bomb the airforce base at Harwell which was only a few miles away from us. Harwell is now the British Atomic-station.
Many bombs were just jetasond around where we now lived in Compton before the bombers returned home.

We did not go to school for about one month because by the time the men had returned from the foundry in which they and the women had to work and had had their lunch at midday, and then the women had their lunch from 1300-1400 it was then the children鈥檚 turn, it was too late to attend.

Food of course was on rationing, so our main meal was always taken from a big stockpot, which was constantly on the black range stove in the kitchen. Everything went into this pot. Rabbits, sausages and whatever else was available at the time. I remember my Mother along with all the other women had to go somewhere official, where they were given money to buy clothes, bedding etc.

After a while a couple of months the men were allocated a cottage through their work places. Some of these cottages were derelict. I remember my Father having to put in new floor boards and windows The house was quite big my Granny and Granddad Aldis lived with us, also my Dad鈥檚 two single uncles . It was really nice and was made very homely. There was a big garden, so my single uncles bought chickens, ducks, rabbits, ferrets, goats, geese and with the dogs it was quite a farmyard. We had plenty of eggs and meat. My uncles knew about animals, as they had bred dogs in London. I loved to help out with all the animals and sometimes my Uncles would pay me with bottles of cream soda. The goats proved be a handful as they would eat anything, so we had to keep them on long ropes.

By this time we went to school. The village school was not big enough to take us, so we had to go to the church mission-hall. All the evacuees about 40 in all went to this same hall, so we did not mind as they had brought their own teachers from London with them and they spoke our language.

We did get some stick from the local kids but we could manage them, they called us 鈥淐ommon Londoners鈥� or 鈥淏loody Cockneys鈥� this did not effect me much but when they said we were 鈥渆vacuees鈥� I would retaliate and call them 鈥渃ountry bumpkins鈥�. My sister married a local chap years later and to this day his brother has always referred to me a spitfire, as I would argue with him and his mates.

We made good friends with the evacuees and we were very sorry when they left to go back to London in 1945 as this meant we had to go to the village school. This was not so bad as there were still quite a lot of cousins at the school with us. My Sister Alex never went to the village school as she was nearly leaving age, you left school at 14 in those days. I and my brother Nobby were too young to work. My sister eventually went into nursing. My Mother worked in the factory, every able bodied person had to work as all the young men were away at war.

My Father then joined the Auxiliary Newbury Fire Service 1943 in until he became ill in 1950 with Tuberculosis. After his death my mother moved back to Compton until her death in 1969

Both my Mother and Father鈥檚 families returned to London after the war but returned very often to visit Compton and my mother.

Both my sister Alex and my Brother Nobby married local people and set up home in Compton.

I worked in Compton and married a jockey from Ireland. We had three children in Compton but we moved from Berkshire to Sussex in the early 50鈥檚 for my husbands work. But anyone who is left from those days returns to Compton to visit my sister and brothers family and to reminisce about the war time in Compton.

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