大象传媒

I married in 1939, aged 25 years and I had just finished training as a nurse when war was declared. I wrote a poem recently about the reaction of the elderly patients in Hammersmith Hospital also poems about that period including an epic from 鈥淪tars of Burma鈥� which is held in the archives of the Imperial War Museum as a tribute to the Forgotten Army and many war poems to form an Anthology.

My late husband was History Master at Wimbledon College and we both agreed to look after these boys who could not travel because of the air raids, for this purpose the Jesuits who ran the college rented a large house opposite their college. My first daughter was born on American Day of Independence 4th July 鈥� the Battle of Britain was raging overhead and the spitfire, some manned by old boys aged only 19, spattered bullets onto the leaded roof, where all congregated to watch. I was below in the old cellar, alone, and it was a very long protractive labour 鈥� I remember the baby was placed inside an old leaded safe and it all seemed like a horrid dream, even now it remains a blur.

18 years later we moved our little family to a small home in Wimbledon and my second daughter was born I had to queue for the tiny rations, we were always hungry, fish and chips were a godsend if we could get them. The Canadian Red Cross sent baby clothes, I remember the first doodlebug on Wimbledon Common, and the chemical blackout 鈥� we had an unexploded small bomb at the bottom of the garden and we all slept down in the coal cellar when the sirens sounded. I was very run down and was pregnant with my third child so to be as I thought safer I remembered in the guard鈥檚 van down to Swansea where my sister-in-laws lived. But it was a mistake as Swansea had been badly bombed and my mother-in-law had been killed, so I lived in a tiny isolated cottage with no water and amenities. I cooked on an open fire, and got water from a well which had snakes in it. The billeting officer for Wales paid my loan back where at least I felt I could get help with the birth. The rockets had begun to fly over and I could only get a hospital bed for three days. The baby was born prematurely and I had a bad attack of shingles 鈥� I managed to get her extra coupons for tinned milk by walking a long way to the rationing office. We had priests and soldiers and children from Germany who had walked all the way over the Pyrenee Mountains 鈥� I remember how traumatised the children were, they wet the beds and had nightmares. The soldiers said they felt sorry for us and they helped with household chores.

I remember the red glow in the sky and heard on the radio that Queens Hall was burned down. The years seemed dark, long and dreary 鈥� no make up, no social life, no real warmth 鈥� coal was very scarce and we also had broken windows so it was hard to keep the young children warm 鈥� I went to the cinema to see Wuthering Heights and when a notice was flashed on the screen Air Raid Alert nobody moved, we were so engrossed 鈥� later outside the flack was flying about as I stumbled through the dark street home.

I remember the constant bad news, ships being small, casualties mounting, but because my late husband was 39 when war broke out he was in a reserved occupation so he was in the Home Guard. However, looking back my earliest regret is that mine is not done to prevent war. You feel pretty helpless as a woman and a mother with small children and fear of invasion. You felt you could only watch and pray 鈥� poetry has been a great solace to me. I remember having an electric kettle plugged in by a top bedroom window, over the front door I was going to tip boiling water over any German soldier who was below.

That is how we felt, that we were in the front line and could be invaded at any moment. People never gave in to careless talk. My friend, I trained with had had whole family killed by a bomb from a German plane going back to Germany. She lived in Kent and her family鈥檚 air raid shelter had a direct hit, I went to the funeral with her and there were seven coffins and she went on duty the next day.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.