大象传媒

In 1938, we went to school and were fitted with gas masks, which were in small cardboard boxes. I hated sewing but we girls in the top class had to make calico covers with a carrying strap for ourselves and at least one other for a younger child. I detested every stitch, which had to be oversewn and strong.

We each had to take a small suitcase of clothes and a blanket to school and to carry our gas masks everywhere.

Father built an Anderson shelter in the garden and it became our favourite meeting place - being anything from a house to a secret tunnel, depending on which game we were playing. Gradually, though, the fears of war faded and life went back to normal.

But in August 1939, it was gas masks out again, little cases and blankets to be taken back to school. "Don't worry," Mother said. "There won't be a war, it will be just like last year all over again".

The school was in Peckham, a large, three-storeyed one - each floor self-contained with its own Head and Staff. Mixed Infants from 4 - 7 on the ground floor, Junior Boys from 7 - 11 on the middle floor, and Junior Girls on the top.

On the 1st September 1939, several double decker buses drew into the playground and we were quickly assembled and ushered aboard.

Somehow the mothers got to know, and they all came running, frantically trying to see us to wave goodbye and we, in turn, gazed out intently, hoping to see our own mother.

We all alighted at Waterloo Station, by now filling with children, all carrying cases and gas masks and wearing large luggage labels around their necks, one side proclaiming their names and addresses and the other the name of their school.

Each school was directed to its own departure gate and we eagerly boarded the trains. After a couple of hours, of watching urban areas change into gree country landscapes, the Headmistress came and whispered the name of our destination to the teachers, but we were not told.

Eventually, we stopped at one of the stations. "Where are we?" we all asked.

"You are in Devon" we were told.

"Where?" asked a frightened voice, "Did they say Heaven?" We all laughed - trust Johnny to get it wrong - did he think we had all died on the way and had arrived at the Pearly Gates? "No, silly, Devon. You're in the country".

It was several years later that I learned that Jewish children all over Europe were similarly boarding trains to Gas Chambers and Concentration Camps. What reply did they receive when they asked where they were - were they told Hell?

Lucky British children to find warm welcome at the end of their journey. Several local people stood in the street to watch us, about three hundred, weary, little travellers, but not too tired to wave and smile to the friendly strangers, watching us march to the local primary school.

At the school we were told that the Infants were to be taken to another town 10 miles away and that Juniors with brothers or sisters in the Infants were to board the waiting buses and go with them.

My best friend had a little brother and I did not want her to leave, so I persuaded them to come to the lavatories with me. Pressing my body against the door to keep it tightly closed, the three of us holding our breath lest we be discovered, waited until we heard the buses drive away and we came quietly out, mingled with the rest of the Juniors.

We were then marched to the Church Hall, where we were given tea and a carrier bag each, containing a bar of chocolate, a tin of corned beef and various groceries.

The people came and picked out the children they wanted to billet. Where possible, families were not parted, but I wanted to stay with my friend and her brother, and after refusing to go with several people, my teacher explained that nobody wanted to take three children, so finally and very reluctantly I went with a lady who lived quite near the Hall.

She had a small sweet shop and we lived above it. On Saturday 2nd September, we all met at the school and tried to explain to our friends where we lived and telling each other, "My lady has a cat" or "My lady had a dog - a car" or whatever and describing the kind of house we were living in.

How she managed it, I do not know, but my mother had posted a new dress to me, with my blue blazer and blue shoes. My teachers had the parcel at the school, and I was delighted with it. It was a pinafore dress with navy blue background with vertical white stripes and flowers like Victorian wallpaper, and elasticated waist and two little Lucy Locket pockets, and inside one was a sixpence wrapped in a handkerchief. The blouse was navy blue and trimmed with red rick rack braid.

On the Sunday we all went to church and I was very proud of my new patriotic red, white and blue outfit. After church, we gathered in the High Street to listen to a relay of a broadcast to the nation by Neville Chamberlain. It was the 3rd September 1939 and he announced that we were at war with Germany. I cried, soaking my new handkerchief with my tears and saying "But my mother said there wouldn't be a war - it's going to be like last year. He's wrong, it's not true". But true it was, and my mother did not come and take me back as I thought she would; instead my parents came to Devon to live and we never did go back.

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