大象传媒

When the Germans occupied Poland in September 1939 I was 16 months old. In retrospect my parents must have been horrified that their daughter had been born into a world in which the word 鈥渨ar鈥� was on most peoples鈥� lips.
So I grew up in a world in which I thought it was normal to have blackout curtains, rationing, and to hear the sirens every night.

Our indoor shelter had a very specific memory for me. My mother had a jar of chocolate coated caramels which she had placed in the shelter, and the 鈥渞ule鈥� was that if there was a mammoth explosion in the neighbourhood it would merit a chocolate being given to us. However, we lived in a suburb of North London so most of the aircraft which flew over us were on their way to the centre and there weren鈥檛 too many bombs which dropped in our area. In one case, however, I do remember seeing a whole house demolished a few streets away and a person had been killed, but mostly we were spared any serious bombing. Maybe that is why at the end of the war there still remained some chocolates at the bottom of the jar!

But we often experienced death indirectly. My sister remembers playing in her friend鈥檚 house when a telegram was delivered. It was to announce the death of her friend鈥檚 20 year old brother who had died on the 7th June 1944 during the landings in Normandy. She remembers the mother sitting on the stairs and sobbing. Another childhood memory was seeing ex-servicemen with either a trouser leg, or an arm-sleeve flapping in the wind, and there were many, many dark armbands around peoples鈥� arms denoting a loss in their families.

In summer 1941 my father decided we should leave the London area so he drove my mother, sister and I down to Somerset on his Panther motor bike and side-car. The journey must have been difficult for my father in view of the fact that all the road signs had either been removed, or pointed in the wrong directions, to deceive the Germans in any eventual invasion. Without any particuar destination in mind, we ended up in a beautiful little village called Allerford, a few miles from Minehead,. After knocking on quite a number of doors, a couple, with 6 daughters! 鈥� accepted to put us up, and there we stayed, intermittently, for the next couple of years. My infant memories are of permanent lines of washing, either in the kitchen or in the garden, and the smell of a coal cellar, in which sometimes one of the daughters might be locked in if she had been naughty. Another memory is the taste of my first ice-cream made in the kitchen of a lady in the village who sold them through her window.

However, even in that idyllic spot, war wasn鈥檛 that far away. My sister remembers my mother pushing me in my pram down a country road, and an aircraft came screaming over. My sister remembers clearly the swastika on the wings. It flew so low that my mother pulled my sister, the pram and herself into a ditch! Apparently a lot of the German` planes flew over that part of the world on their way to bomb Bristol.

By the time we returned to London, it was time for me to start infants鈥� school. It is only in retrospect I realise what a terribly dangerous position our school was in 鈥� next to the military barracks at Mill Hill 鈥� just across the street from the school! Going to school I remember looking up and seeing the silver barrage balloons 鈥� and on another occasion we would have to go down into the shelter below the school 鈥� and sing songs like 鈥淩oll out the Barrel鈥� (鈥渨e鈥檒l have a barrel of fun鈥�), or 鈥淩un Rabbit Run, Run, Run鈥� (鈥渄on鈥檛 let the farmer get his gun, gun, gun鈥�) and seeing the puddles on the floor. There were, of course, more communal shelters in the small park near our home. My mother would bundle me up in my 鈥渟iren suit鈥� (a miniature version of the one Churchill wore) and we would go rushing across the road, cutting through a neighbour鈥檚 garden to get to the shelters. The shelters remained there long after the war 鈥� large grass covered humps in the park 鈥� and we would drop stones down the ventilation shaft and hear them clink a few feet further down.

Shortly after the war my mother would have to take me 鈥� on foot 鈥� to the Mill Hill East Clinic. On the way we would pass near the military barracks, and there was a German prisoner of war camp there. My mother was an attractive woman, and she must have hated walking in front of the camp where the soldiers came up to wire fence to look at us. From my 6 year old height the Germans seemed enormous. One proffered an apple to me 鈥� my mother didn鈥檛 want me to take it but I crossed the road and accepted it. I have an enduring memory of this kindly looking soldier, with his peaked hat on, who handed me the apple. Sometimes when my parents and sister went for a picnic we would see the prisoners of war in the fields stacking the hay into stooks.

I grew up surrounded by uniforms - my numerous uncles being in each of the different services, although my own father, doing war-work, was in the ARP. One day my father was walking in London. At that time there was a lot of looting after raids, and a policeman, seeing he had something bulky under his jacket, stopped him and asked him what he was carrying. He was in the printing trade and his firm had been commissioned to print posters of Churchill, and my father had one on him, so taking it from out of his jacket, said 鈥渨ell this is someone we all admire鈥� and duly unrolled it in front of some onlookers who all applauded!

For birthday parties and Christmases, my mother managed to save her coupons, and always had enough to buy a couple of fresh eggs (if not, we had dried ones)so with other precious ingredients she was able to make cakes, tarts, jellies, and my father had an allotment (in addition to our own garden) in which he would grow fruit and vegetables. Looking back there was great excitement at the thought of having these special teas, as during most of the year the meals were not particularly appetising. For us chidren they had to be supplemented by Parrishes Food (a dark red liquid containing an iron supplement), a thick gooey malt kept in an eathenware jar, Milk of Magnesia (which to this day brings a grimace to the faces of all of us who remember drinking it!), cod liver oil, and the obligatory orange juice. My mother also invented a sweet which we loved 鈥� condensed milk mixed with dried milk powder, rolled into small balls, with a spot of vanilla essence, and then rolled again in the milk powder. We certainly didn鈥檛 have many bought sweets as they were strictly rationed. We could only stand on the platform at the station 鈥� look longingly at the chocolate vending machines in which 鈥� it appeared 鈥� before the war you could put 2 pennies in and get out a bar of chocolate! No wonder in the early 50s when sweets came off the ration, that everyone went mad, and bought so many packets/boxes, that they had to be put on ration again! I still have the ration book my mother used, and there are still quite a few coupons remaining in it, so she was pretty thrifty with them. On just one occasion we received a food parcel from America and there was great excitement as we discovered the contents - I remember specifically some "Jack Frost Icing sugar" - which we kept as a souvenir, and was thrown away (by accident) only a couple of years ago!

At the end of the war, Victory Day was memorable. My father took my sister and I up to Piccadilly Circus and I remember sitting on his shoulders waving a Union Jack. We draped a large flag in the front of our house and I was dressed as a mauve butterfly and went to dance at the victory celebrations held in the local park. A lot of the women had to wait a long time, though, for their husbands to come home. Our neighbour 鈥� whose husband fought in North Africa 鈥� came home after 5 years, during which time she had been left to bring up their mentally handicapped child on her own.

As a 鈥渨ar child鈥� I can鈥檛 help but feel my life was enriched by growing up in that particular period. But as suburban children, we were very protected and didn鈥檛 suffer anything like the experiences of children living in the centre of the big cities. But there must have been a constant fear for my parents, especially in 1940, that England might be invaded, and it is to their credit that this fear never penetrated through to us.

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