大象传媒

I was 1yr 8mth's old in September 1939 when my father, aged 35yrs, was called up or told to report to serve in the RAF at the start of the 2nd World War. I never saw my father again until I was 7yrs old.
I lived with my mother and older sister in Hanwell, West London. I remember going shopping with a ration book and watching the shopkeepers put a cross in a square to indicate that one person's weekly allocation of meat, eggs, sweets etc had been bought. We had one egg each per week and my mother used one to make cakes.
I remember the sound of the bombs - V1 and V2, dropping near our home. We would go and look at the site the next day and would see a large crater. One day a bomb dropped on a nearby small departmental store- my mother thought it might have fallen on our school and she ran all the way to the school in her anxiety.
She could not sleep properly at night, afraid if a bomb dropped. Once dawn came she could sleep. When we heard the bombs at home, she would take us to stand in a doorway of a room where she thought we would be safest. A neighbour had put up an Anderson shelter in our back garden, a corrugated iron semi-circular roofed shed, but it soon had water in it and we did not use it. One day we were in the street and heard the droning of a 'doodlebug' or self-propelled flying bomb (and saw it too), a householder called us inside her home to sit under another shelter, a large metal table. We would listen until the droning stopped and then wait for the explosion, not knowing where the bomb would land.
People used to go at night to sleep on the platforms of the underground station nearby. One day after a bomb had dropped close to us, my mother took us to look at how people managed this arrangement but she decided that she would rather take our chance in our own home.
After sometime she eventually decided to be 'evacuated' with my sister and me. We were organised to travel with many others to a safe area, in fact we went on a long train journey to Newcastle! We gathered in a community hall and then we were allocated to live with someone in their own home. We were placed with a woman whose husband was away in the Armed Forces. She had a baby son and lived in a large flat. However after 6 wks my mother could not live like that any longer and she brought us home.
We used to read, draw and play games. No-one I knew had a car except relatives of the family we stayed with when we were evacuated. We didn't have a telephone or a TV then,not even a radio that worked. My mother used to make most of our clothes by hand as she had no sewing machine.
It was always exciting to receive a letter from my father, from Italy, Egypt, Cyprus or N.Africa. Only once do I recall that some words were 'blocked out'(censored). He would also send us fruit, lemons, oranges, but most were mouldy by the time we received them. Once he sent us bracelets, wooden and inlaid, I still have one.
We had to use 'black curtains' to cover our windows and if a chink of light did show, the air raid wardens would knock and tell you to close the curtains properly.
When my father returned home after the war, he rang the local pub to get a message to my mother. We had to get to know my father after his long absence and it was difficult to get used to his authority and I don't think we ever did fully. His life was not easy on demobilisation, not least because he had no clothes that fitted him except his RAF uniform. His 'demob' suit did not arrive for some weeks. He was unable to go back to his old job as a manager in a city bar and catering establishment because of staff changes.
So our lifestyle was affected as my father had a struggle to obtain adequate employment. However, being in the RAF had certainly taken him to countries which he would never have visited and he would continue to refer to this all his life but it never really made up for the fact that his career had been interrupted and virtually ended.
Rita Bretzke
Maiden Name: De'ath

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