大象传媒

W2 People鈥檚 War

Story title: Excerpts taken from FAMILY VALUES
On the 20th June 1940, my mother, a widow with five children aged between thirteen and seven, said Goodbye to us all. The pupils from St. Joseph's tin hut school, the convent further along St. Peter's Park Road, Broadstairs, and schools from Ramsgate, filled the trains going out from Ramsgate Station, where, I'm told, we milled about with French soldiers who had left the beaches of Dunkirk.
We each took our own mug, and food for the journey, which we carried in a pillow case, which in turn was to be used for our beds when we reached our billets. None of us knew it at the time, but this was to be the last day we would spend together as a family. We had spent our last day getting up together, going to Mass together, playing, or getting on each others' nerves. No more would Mum see us off to school, standing at the gate as we walked along Victoria Avenue to the turn. No more would Billy turn constantly to shout; "Ta ta, Mum!" as Mum called back; "Ta ta, Duck!" until we turned the corner.
A Mass was held at Our Lady, Star Of The Sea, on Broadstairs Road, then Mum kissed us all Goodbye, and parting came, abrupt as death.
Ruby, thirteen, and Jack, twelve, went separately to Tamworth. Billy, ten, Jimmy, nine, and I, seven, were together for the journey and up until the distribution. I remember Jimmy holding the big bottle of pop as we walked along the corridor. On the train, was a Sister Vincent, from Ramsgate, who barked at him fiercely; "Where did you get that from?" "We brought it with us," he told her. She snorted, and moved on. We were to get to know Sister Vincent, at least the boys were. She never hit the girls, but she attacked the boys with anything she could lay her hands on. She even kept the rung of a chair for the purpose, a thick one, which must have inflicted untold damage on growing bones.
This journey was one of the better ones. One heard of journeys transporting vackies who suffered in the intense heat, overcrowding, sickness, and no toilets. Those who had their mothers with them were taken off at the first stop, after many hours, where they found their way back home, some to be killed in the ensuing air raids.
We reached Stafford, exhausted and bewildered. We were marched from the station to the market place, now a shopping precinct, and we were each given a packet of biscuits and a bottle of milk. There were hundreds of us, many crying and calling for their Mum. Some of the children cannot have been more than four years old.
Leaving my mother was not a problem for me. At seven, I was ready to face the world. A world in which I had absolute faith and confidence. With hindsight, I wish I too, had cried, screamed, kicked up a fuss and demanded to go back home. During the next two years, I would look back on this first seven years of life, regulated though it was by a normal range of discipline and almost Spartan living, as if it had been a period of indulgence, licence and affectionate cosseting.
The official behind the desk, who clearly had better things to do with her time, demanded of Jimmy; "Do you want to go with your brother or your sister?" In his confusion and tiredness he replied; "With my brother." He was to have it unfairly on his conscience for years afterwards. In these more civilised times, more trouble is taken over the placing of a litter of puppies than for working-class children then.
Billy and Jimmy were taken to Frank and Florence Gibbs, in Izaak Walton Street, a nice middle aged couple who treated them decently. They kept in touch afterwards, until the couple died.
I was taken at first to an old couple at the wrong number. They gave me supper and showed me where my bed was. The following morning, when I woke up to find myself for the first time without a family around me, I found my mouth going square with dismay. But, having no-one familiar to appeal to, I stifled the tears, got my little handbag out of the drawer where I'd been told I could put it, and went downstairs. I was later taken to a house further down the street. My landlady's name was Jessie Newbold. She had two children, Doreen, aged twelve, and David, who was six. Their father Frank, and his father, known only as Grandad Newbold, completed the family.
I was given Doreen's dolls' house to play with, and I sat there, self-consciously moving the pieces about, while they all sat and stared at me. They had heard about vackies. How we were flea ridden, dirty and badly behaved. We were generally regarded as 'bloody refugees.' They soon got tired of staring at me. They settled to something else; reading the paper, knitting and listening to the wireless, and I played board games with David.
In fact, I was a great disappointment to Mrs. Newbold. She had confidently expected a scruffy little slum child. Someone she could patronise and teach how to behave. A child who would make her feel good about herself. But to claim that I was better mannered, better brought up and brighter than they were is no kind of boast. Mrs. Gibbs considered that Mrs. Newbold was vulgar, and kept well away from her. Too polite to comment, and too immature to judge, I tried to fall into their ways. It was soon made clear to me that I did not have the same rights as her own children. Nor the same amount of food. At a party given for a child in the same street, she kept missing me out as she went round with the plate of cakes. She gave me a hard look as I looked anxiously across at her. Systematic starvation soon followed this.
At the tea table one day, I sat quietly eating, and trying to avoid trouble. She suddenly dipped her bread into her tea, and flung it across the table at me. It hit me full in the face.
"That can't 'ave 'urt yer, yer big titty babby!" she shouted, at my reaction. She didn't thrash me this time. She tended to do this in private.
"'Er's bin petted and pampered," she said, for the umpteenth time.
Thus began a dreadful time, in which, becoming bored in the evening, she would set the children on to me. They took turns in slapping my face, so that they could legitimately sing; "Poor Mary sits a'weeping," when I could no longer hold off the tears. A time in which, bragging to a friend, she said;
"When 'er works 'er face like that, I slap it till 'er stops."
Blows to the head don't show bruises. So this was her favourite occupation. She had absolute power over me, and it corrupted her absolutely. By now, a gaping hole had been
blown in my life. When I had first arrived, it seemed like a dream, which would soon end, and I could go back to the old life. But now, it was the old life that was a dream.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from Wyre Forest Volunteer Bureau on behalf of Mary-Rose Benton and has been added to this site with her permission. Mrs Benton fully understand the site's terms and conditions.)

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