大象传媒

I was first evacuated to Hemel Hampstead Hospital from Great Ormond Street Hospital. We went by coach which had the seats taken out and bars put in so our stretchers could be slid in three high, I was in the middle one and could see out of the windows. We passed long flat back lorries with airplanes on them with their eings folded up.
Many mums brought black market eggs, apples, pears and other foods to the hospital, they were shared amongst the patients.
At the end of our tea we would get a quarter of a apple or pear, if someone got a piece of pear you knew they were very ill and might die.
One evening the nurses started to move beds out of our ward which was very long. Children who could get up and move around put their dressing gowns on, the young ones like me were given a trolley to push, we had to follow the nurses, we were given two nurses to follow each. The older children also followed nurses and doctors. Soon american soldiers were brought in still with mud and blood on them.
Screens were pulled around them one by one, we young children waiting outside the screens, we could hear the nurses talking to the soldiers, and we could hear the soldiers crying, all of them were wounded.
Their uniforms were cut off, the older children were given a list of what was needed to clean the soldiers with, they would come back with bowls of water, soaps, towels and clean night shirts on their trollies, then the doctors would see the soldiers, if bandage dressings, ointments and stitches were needed the older children were given another list to go to the pharmacy.
The younger children were waiting for the bloody clothes and when our trollies were full we took them to another room, and went back for more. After a day or two the children were allowed to meet the soldiers, one of them taught me a song "you are my sunshine", I still sing it today.
It snowed one day and the big glass doors at one end of the ward were opened and the local children made a snowman for us.
At Christmas we were given a small round box, striped red and white or blue and white. They had boiled sweets in them.
A few days before christmas my friend in the next bed started to have pear at tea-time, she died christmas day.

Some time later I was evacuated to Retford near Nottingham.
I was taken there by my mother on a train. I sat on a sailors kitbag in the corridor all the way there.
My parents friends had taken over a relatives house (they were in the forces).
There was Charles (train driver), Alice (Mother), Shirley was tall with fair hair and glasses and Pauline had curly blond hair, was very pretty and had rosy cheeks - everyone loved her, but me.
We had a very long walk to school, we took our sandwiches for dinner, Shirley and Pauline had two sandwiches,two biscuits or fruit. I had one slice of bread and jam folded in half.
The school was one room all of the desks were in straight lines - different age for each line.
The oldest boy in the room would get the bucket of coal for the fire in the winter and sometimes I had to do it.
I sat in front of the teacher.
The teacher did not like us, we were from the wicked city of London, but I was worse. I was left handed - a Devils Child, this very strict religious woman took it upon herself to save me from the devil.
I was not allowed anything in my left hand, she would walk up and down the lines of deskd with a cane behind her back, never hitting anyone but me, the cane would go up over her head and down hitting me anywhere it fell on the head, face, shoulder, back, arms, legs. I could not write with ink because I made a mess so I was given a slate and chalk.
The only thing I learnt there was the hymn "we plough the fields and scatter".
A girl named Beattie Boggis would hit and punch Shirley and knocked her glasses off and breaking them, although I was younger and smaller than Shirley.
Alice would cane me at night in the bathroom because I had not stopped it or defended her.
I chewed my clothes wet and messed myself and Alice caned me again.
Today I do not like a bathroom, will shower quickly and only bath on a bright sunny day with the blind pulled three-quarters of the way down.
Behind the house was four fields the third field had a large bush in it with a ditch around it, I would jump the ditch and hide in the bush. No one every found me, I would hide all day only going back at tea-time because it was dark. Sometimes I got tea, more often than not, nothing.
One Sunday morning Shirley, Pauline and I had to go for a walk. Pauline went to the toilet in a field, Shirley wanted paper to clean Pauline with. I found a white paper bag, in it was a chunk of cheese, lump of butter - we thought we had found something good, but I got caned.
For Sunday afters, Alice made apple pie, she would make two big roses out of spare pastry and two little leaves to go on top. Shirley and Pauline had one big rose each and I had two little leaves.
My mother would visit every six weeks, she worked in a factory making parts for spitfires, and the release gadget for planes and gliders. When it was near to her visit Alice stopped hitting me, and if my mother asked about the marks on me Alice would blame the school teacher.
One day my mother turned up unexpectedly - the factory was damaged by a bomb, and it was closed for two days repair.
I had cane marks all over me, and so I would not cry, I bit my tongue and lips, so when she came I also had swollen tongue and lips all bleeding.
My mother must of had words with Alice, because she took my hand and walked me out of the house, to the train station, we did not pack or take anything with us.
I was taken to my grandparents bomb-damaged house. A little good food, warmth and loved. My mother went back to work and dad was in Burma.
What was best - no caning by anyone and no beating up by Beattie Boggis.

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