大象传媒

In 1939, at the age of eight, I was evacuated from Plough Lane School in Battersea to Westbury in Wiltshire.

I remember two coaches leaving for Paddington, and from there to Westbury, where we were taken to a church hall. We had been labelled with our names and addresses, and now we were given a little bag of food. We were selected by the local families as to where we would live - it was horrible.

It seemed as if we wern't wanted or loved, but a problem to be dealt with. However, I was lucky to be picked by a lovely couple; she was an opera singer and they lived in a huge detached house.

I remember seeing a bathroom for the first time, and in the front garden there was a huge round bed of marigolds.

The first night I peed the bed!

There was a funny little village school, and not long after attending we were asked what religion we were. I had no idea what religion I was, so I asked the girl next to me what she was. She said "Salvation Army" - so when asked I proudly announced Salvation Army. Whereupon the two of us were promptly bundled into the corner of the classroom. It seems we were the only two Salvation Army members in the school.

My time in Westbury was a happy one and at one point my foster parents, who couldn't have any children, offered to adopt me.

I was always wandering off to a nearby farm, and loved spending time with the animals. In that short period I developed a love of the countryside, and for animals, which has stayed with me all of my life.

On Saturday mornings we would go to the picture house to watch the ongoing adventures of Marco Polo staring Gary Cooper. For sweets, which were rationed, we had Megazone Cough Sweets because they had sugar on them.

I sometimes dressed up in my foster mother's costumes and sang to her guests when they visited.

After three months my mother came to fetch me because London had been going through a phoney war. Within a week of being back in London the Germans started bombing.

Several months later, I recall one incident very vividly.

Every Sunday we would visit my grandmother in Millwall. On this particular Sunday we were only part of the way home, at Aldgate, when the bombers came over. We sheltered under a shop awning when an incendiary device landed on the canopy overhead. My father raised his hands and rolled it off into the waiting hands of a Home Guard officer.

A taxi came by and my mother begged him to take us home. He refused, but then relented when he saw an eight-year old child. The drive home was difficult with roads closed and fire engines everywhere. We passed Charing X which was ablaze. As the taxi was making little progress, my mother suggested we make our way to Scotland Yard where she worked as a cleaner and she knew we would be safe. However, access to this safehaven was blocked as a vehicle had gone down a huge crater in the road.

We eventually arrived home where my relieved mother was so grateful she took her rings off and offered them to the cab driver. He refused all payment, however, saying that "Listening to your little girl singing cockney songs throughout the journey was payment enough".

I have always enjoyed singing during the good and bad times in my life, being blessed with a lovely father who was a true cockney.

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