大象传媒

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Part 3
One hot summer day, when everything was quiet; I was now about thirteen and a half and had been on an errand for my Mum, there was no hurry, it was a beautiful day and the sun shone down from a lovely blue sky. Everything was peaceful as I slowly peddled along the road. The silence was suddenly broken by the sound of one solitary plane, passing over above me. I didn't take a lot of notice, there wasn't an air-raid on so it must be one of ours.
Then I saw it coming out of a white fluffy cloud, and it wasn't one of ours and it was coming straight toward me. Suddenly its guns started blazing, I was absolutely terrified! i ! As it came nearer and nearer I couldn't think straight and I just started pedaling faster than I had ever peddled before (or after!). Luckily I was near the corner of the road, and I turned the corner and was out of range, but I still kept going. I don't think I have ever gone so fast under my own steam.
I arrived back at home in a terrible state, Mum was cleaning the kitchen windows and taking one look at me, she said,
"Whatever is the matter ?" and I said, "Didn't you hear that plane, machine gunning me ?".
She said that she thought it had been elsewhere and didn't realise it had been so close, she asked me why I didn't go into someone's house for shelter; but I hadn't even thought of that, my only thought had been to get out of the way quickly, and get home as soon as possible.
At that point the sirens started wailing, a bit late in the day, but sometimes it did happen that a solitary plane would escape detection and get through the defences. There was no let up with the air-raids, and Violet, as I mentioned before was becoming more and more upset, only to spark off more and more asthma attacks, so it was then that our Mum and Dad decided that we should both be sent away to stay with relations in South Wales.
I was very reluctant, I didn't want to go, but Violet needed someone to go with
her, so I had to go, there was no argument. Our luggage had been sent off in advance, we just had our hand luggage. Our main luggage was meant to arrive there long before us, but when we actually arrived, it seemed that our luggage hadn't. What had happened to it, nobody seemed to know. We were only staying a few minutes away from the station, so every day I went to enquire about it. The workers at Caerphilly station, had no idea what had happened to it. What a to-do, we only had the clothes we stood up in !
Maybe it would arrive tomorrow, meanwhile, we had to wash out our undies every day and dry them ready for the next day.
We both started school, it was normal hours here, not like at home. I caught the bus from outside the door in the morning, I came home at lunchtime and went back to school for the afternoon session. There were no school dinners in those days, so most people went home. A few people took sandwiches because they couldn't get home and back in time. I sometimes wished that I could take sandwiches as well, every lunchtime when I went home, my Aunt would say, "Go across to the chip shop and get some chips for Violet and you, and on the way back call in the cafe and get a pastie each.".
This was our dinner six days a week, only on Sundays did we have a proper dinner. I think I must have had withdrawal symptoms, I missed my home-cooked meals. When we eventually went back home, I told my Mum that I never wanted to see another pastie or chips. Six months of this diet was too much for me. Meanwhile, our luggage had still not arrived, I haunted the station every day to see if it had come yet.
We were still wearing the clothes that we had arrived in, and as far as I was concerned, my best dress was now my worst dress. I loved it when we left home, but I had now become heartily sick and tired of it. Week after week I went to the station to enquire about it and at last, after about five or six weeks, it arrived.
It had been stuck on Paddington station under a big pile of luggage, what a relief to have some different clothes to change into. The best dress was discarded for a long time now, I had something else to put on. My school uniform was in the case, and it was only slightly different from the uniform at the school I was now attending. Besides Violet and I, there were lots of other children who had been evacuated to South Wales from various parts of the country:- London, Folkestone and Dover, amongst other coastal towns of the south east that were too dangerous to live in. They were being bombed constantly, and around the Dover area, they were also being shelled by the big guns situated on the French coast. The Germans spent a lot of time shelling the English coastline, in an attempt to wear everyone down, and trying to prepare the way for the invasion of Britain.
I had a bit of a problem myself, on the bus. I was always forgetting my gas mask, I would put it down beside me and forget to pick it up when I got off the bus.
It meant a long walk to the bus garage to collect it. One of the bus drivers that used to take us back and forth to school, became quite famous during and after the war, for writing plays for the stage and television; his name was Eynon Evans, whether any of us schoolchildren featured in his plays, I don't know.

We often went for long walks with friends and cousins, rambling round the country lanes, climbing Caerphilly Mountain, going to the Castle and searching round the different rooms, climbing round the stairs up into the towers and looking down into the dungeons, but not daring enough to go inside them.
We also went to church every Sunday, the rector there was very old, or so he seemed to us. He must have been, because he was there when our Mum went to Sunday school.
He decided that I should be confirmed into the church, and I said no, that I didn't want to be confirmed, and I didn't understand what it all meant; but I was still sent off to confirmation classes each week. I wrote to Mum and Dad, telling them how I felt, and patiently awaited their reply. But Mum had replied to my Aunt, who told me that they had said I was to be confirmed. Not being in my own home, I didn't argue the point and so very reluctantly, I went with my two cousins to the church. One of my cousins, the girl, who was six months older than me, and a boy cousin who was six months younger than me.
My Aunt was making a confirmation dress for me, while my cousin was having one especially made for her. Mine was probably a very nice dress, but I disliked it intensely. When the Confirmation day arrived, we were all dressed up in our finery, my cousin, who lived three doors away, came out, looking for all the world like a bride; with a long white satin gown, head dress and veil, while I had this off- white crepe de chine three quarter length dress. It drooped and the hemline seemed to go up and down all the way round. I must have had a veil and a head dress, but I felt so bad about the dress, I could not remember what they were like. I was very conscious of the fact that I was different, and not looking my best in front of so many people.
While we were in Wales, we found a few ingenious inventions; across the road was an Ironmonger's shop. Although it didn't have very much in the way of china things to buy, they had bits and pieces to adapt things so that they could still be used. If anyone broke a handle off an everyday cup, we could go across the road and buy metal handles that clipped on as a replacement. This handle could clip onto most things, so long as they weren't too big. They also sold decorative strips of leather, with elastic fitted on both ends. They came in black, brown, navy and most popular colours of the day. They slipped over the front of our shoes to vary the styles, and they instantly changed the look of your shoes. Some had bows and some had fancy pieces stitched onto them; it was a brilliant idea as coupons to buy new shoes were in rather short supply. If you needed a new look to your dress, or even your underwear, with these small pieces of leather you could ring the changes every day.
The school times were normal in Caerphilly, there were a few air-raids, but nothing came near, although we could hear the guns and bombs dropping on Cardiff and Newport and even as far away as Bristol. There were only two bombs that I knew of that were dropped on Caerphilly. They hit a sports stadium opposite the school.
If the sirens sounded while we were at school, there were no shelters there, so we had to leave school and go to private houses to shelter.( Not a very Practical idea). The school was set back off the road with a fairly long drive in front of it, if any planes had come over, we would not have stood a chance against them. There was nowhere to hide between the school and the houses.
I had my fourteenth birthday in February, and I would be allowed to leave school at Easter. I wrote and asked Mum if we could go home. It was decided that she would come to Wales for the Easter and that we would go home with her. The raids had eased off a bit now and Violet was a lot fitter. So, with great excitement, we packed to go home, this time, complete with our luggage as we couldn't afford to take any more chances of it not arriving.
This time it was not a comfortable journey, we went by steam train, which was normally very comfortable; but these were not normal times and the train was packed with Service personnel of all types, besides the civilians, so we were all packed like sardines in a can. Luggage was piled on the racks, under the seats or in the train corridors. People had to try and sit on upended luggage to rest their legs. It was normally a four hour journey, but this one seemed to go on forever, with delays and diversions. The conditions were so stuffy and cramped, with people accidentally stepping on you, instead of over you, as they needed to get along the corridor for various reasons, but what did it matter, we were going home!
Once home, I had to register at the Labour Exchange ( Job Centre ) to see what, if any, jobs they had to offer. I was sent to apply for several jobs, but someone always managed to get there before me, and they no longer needed anyone, especially a small fourteen year old like me. In the end, I was sent to the local laundry, where they took me on. It was not what I wanted, but at least it was a job. Once you started, you couldn't leave, it was "Government Orders".
I worked for five days a week from 7.30 am. until 5.30 pm. and on Saturdays it was 7.30 am. until noon. On Monday mornings, we started a little later, to allow the first batch of washing to be collected, sorted and washed by the time we arrived. I was shown how to operate a press, which looked like two ironing boards without legs, attached to a central upright. At the back was another part that looked like an ironing board, but that part didn't move. I had to put the ends of a batch of towels onto the one board and swing it round to the back, while putting more towels on the other board.
I put my foot on a pedal, bringing the first board up to meet the non- movable one, making the steam gush out and press the towel ends, not too hard, but you had to make sure the towels were flat on the board. In between doing all that, the towels had to be folded flat ready to go on the press. If I didn't keep up with the tumble drier, the towels would pile up by the trolley load. There was no time for slacking and everything had to be done on time, ready to be taken to the customers on their delivery day. After I had finished, they were all sorted again, and packed up, it was the same routine every week.
One day, one of the boys who worked on the vans, brought in a pair of army trousers, like those worn by the Home Guard. He asked me if I could press them for him. Never having had a pair of trousers at that time, and certainly never having pressed any before, I pressed a crease up the leg, but never continued up the top of the trousers. I must have been really stupid, but he was quite nice about it and the next day he told me what I had done wrong and I never had that problem again.
It was a long day for a fourteen year old, I left home at half past six in the morning, and I didn't get home until half past six at night. If you were more than three minutes late in the morning, you were stopped a quarter of an hour's money. It certainly added up to a fair amount if you were late on a regular basis. My pay for a forty-eight hour week was twelve shillings and sixpence a week (62 and 1/2p in today's money). Out of that, I had to give my Mum ten shillings (50p) and I had two shillings and sixpence (12 and 1/2p) left for myself. Out of that, I had to pay for my own clothes and everything else that I wanted, needless to say, it was not enough to do anything with, and I was usually broke before the weekend was over.
One night a week, we had to stay at work all night on fire watching duties, four of us at a time. We had a room with four camp beds, an old table and some rickety old chairs. We had an old gas ring and an even older electric kettle which was very faulty and must have come out of the ark ! Every time we tried to plug the kettle in, it would give us an electric shock. In turn, we had all been thrown across the room, we complained and complained until at last it was fixed. It still amazes me that nobody was seriously hurt. As we told the boss, if Hitler didn't get us, the kettle would !
If the sirens sounded when we were in bed, we had to get up and keep a look out for incendiary bombs ( fire bombs ) being dropped. We had stirrup pumps, buckets of water and buckets of sand to use, to put out any fires that might start. Luckily we never had to use them. If anything had fallen onto the roof, fm sure it would have had to burn, I can't imagine any of us females climbing on to the roof, up an extended ladder. It was far too high, it would have had to burn until we raised the alarm. There weren't many men about, most of them had gone into the forces, and most boys were called up by the time they were eighteen, whilst others joined up at seventeen and a half. Some were found medically unfit for the armed forces, and so were drafted into war work. Others had no choice and were sent to work in the coal mines, they were called Bevin Boys. Younger boys and older men were either in the Civil Defence such as air-raid wardens and the Home Guard, and all were trying to do their best. We had ladies delivering milk, bread and the mail. Anywhere labour was short of men, women turned to plumbing and mechanics, it was mostly by trial and error, but they all soon learned and everything carried on much as usual, but perhaps a little bumpier.

Continued in Part 4

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