大象传媒

I just remember suddenly waking up in the middle of the night and my mother putting my dressing gown on and carrying me downstairs to the Anderson shelter which was in the kitchen and then reading me Mary Plain books. My father didn't go to war, thankfully. I have very few memories of him but a lasting memory is being taken in his arms and thrown up into the air (I could only have been about three) because the Army had refused him because he had a mastoid. I remember the big department store Beales in flames and watching the smoke from my bedroom window; the planes going over in the Battle of Britain; the crump of bombs as they hit a big hotel in Bournemouth where there were many Canadian airmen killed whilst on R & R. With great affection I remember the Jewish man who lived with us during the war, he was terrified of staying in Brighton so came to us - a more generous man never lived - he paid for me to go to private school which was nearer than any other, for safety reasons, and would always sit fascinated whilst my mother read various books to me each evening before bedtime.
Not very interesting but those are my memories, I'm sure I'll have more when I've signed off!!

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