大象传媒

On Saturday September 2nd 1939 aged 13 and 2 months i was evacuated from West Norwood S.E London to Worthing, East Sussex.

All the children had to assemble at the school, we were told to bring a change of clothes and our gas masks.

We were all given a brown label to tie on our coats and a brown paper bag containing one packet of tea, hard water buscuits, a large bar of chocolate and a few other rations of which i can't remember.

We were then marched in double file to the railway station, the younger children seemed especially upset at leaving their parents. I was not worried, it was though i was going on holiday. I was used to living in different places (though thats another story)

At the time we had no idea where we were going - neither did our parents.
When we got to our destination we were taken to some kind of hall.
People came to choose a child or two, but some of the children who came with more brothers and sisters had to be seperated.

The younger children were picked first as the other older ones had to wait. My class mate Dorothy Woolams and i were the last to be picked (as our surnames were beginning with W - Woolhouse in my case.

We were taken in by a middle aged couple, whose names i've forgotten - which i'm very sad about.

What i do remember about them is that they grew their own tomatoes - which were delicious we would have them every evening for tea with cheese or corned beef and the very hard water buscuits. We had lunch at school during the week but lunched with our hosts during the weekend.
One funny lunch meal we had was mince served with triangle of toast. I don't remeber seeing the bar of chocolate again.

One night Dorothy upset the chamberpot under the bed, and didn't tell anyone, the next morning our host put her mop in it as she dusted under the bed (no carpet in those days only linoleum.
After that incident we had to go downstairs at night to the outside toilet which was a bit scary!

The day after we arrived sept 3rd we were taken to the beach on a school excursion and at 11 o clock, the air raid sirens sounded announcing the beginning of the war. We were all terrified thinking we were going to be bombed straight away.

The Lady of the house said i was always sighing, i suppose it was because i was petrified. After about a month i wrote to my father begging to come home - so back to London i went and survived all the air raids.

After the evacuations all the schools were closed, so i was fortunate to have a 9 month holiday until i reached my fourteenth birthday.

Before the war started i had passed an exam to go to technical college to study dress making and art. It was a two year course at Millbank in London.

I had been there for a day to see the place and it was wonderful - i was really looking forward going but due to the war it closed down.

So at the age of 14 i went to work in a factory, a telephone manufacturing company making communications equipment for the forces, i was there for seven years, in different areas of the plant some jobs were very interesting - working with blue prints was my favourite.

I left the factory aged 21, after getting married and went to live in Clifton Hampden with my in-laws the Robertson. And so began the best years of my life.

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