大象传媒

I was 1 year old when the war broke out my brother was three and my sister was born during the war.
My father had already joined the Scots Guards before so was obviously one of the first to go,I know he went to Norway and then Tunsia where he was killed in 1943,leaving my mother with three children, the house and her memories!I remember following the telegraph boy up the garden path when the telegram was delivered,he jumped over the garden wall.I remember wondering why my mother and aunt who was staying with us at the time, were crying. My brother was badly affected by the loss of my father and used to go to the railway station and ask any solders he saw if they were his daddy ,no counselling in those days! I can just about remember the sirens going off and the air raid shelter in the garden,the search lights and black out and barrage ballons. I know we went to stay in Wales where my mother had been born but my mother didn't like leaving the house so back we came to find the roof blown off and half the street bombed but this did not deter my mother so there we stayed for the rest of the war!
After the war my mother took in lodgers to make ends meet, so we grew up with a houseful of men from Ireland mostly, over here to help rebuid.
There were plenty of bombsites where we played,American solders,and rationing.Mum kept chickens which came in handy for the eggs and fattened up to eat especially at Christmas,one of the lodgers who came from Yorkshire and eventually married my aunt who was up from Wales, had the job of killing them and the kitchen would be full of feathers when they were plucked.My mother was a brilliant cook and seemed to make food stetch,there was always good food, her rabbit stew was out of this world as was her spotted dick puddings! No wonder the lodgers never left!She knitted all our jumpers and made us girls our clothers,I remember wearing a lot of kilts why kilts I don't know perhaps they were easier to make!She also made rag rugs with bits of material.And at one point she went to work as a barmaid so got to know all the people selling things on the black market. I can honestly say we never went without during or after the war.We also went to Wellington Barracks for the Christmas party which was very good,plenty of food and a pressie!
Bath night was Saturdays and when us girls had our hair washed she would go through it with a Nit comb! especially mine as I had very long hair which was plaited in the week and put in rags at the weekend to make ringlets not very comfortable to sleep in if I recall!There were trams in those days rickty bone shaking things that travelled up the middle of the road.We went to the saturday morning pictures where the noise was deafening it would be full of kids shouting at the top of their voices at the baddies and cheering the good guys,always a couple of cartoons and a comedy with Laurel&Hardy or the Three Stooges and the serial usually cowboys with Roy Rogers in or Gene Autry always the Seventh cavalry and they always beat the Indians, great times! Can anyone remember "sherbet,chocolate powder,liqurice wood,gobstoppers,and buying a halfpenny(old money) of broken wafers"! Mum used to take us up to the West End sometimes as a treat to Lyons Corner house to have tea and a knicker bocker glory which I never could finish!Times were so different then,us kids could travel around in comparative safety we would go to London to the Tower,visit the museums and art galleries, Trafalgar Square to feed the pigeons or just to look round the shops,I don't think it dawned on our mother that we would come to any harm.She would pack my sister and I off to Wales from Paddington with a label round our necks in the care of the guard to Wales every year for the six week summer holidays,I felt very grown up she would give me enough money to buy tea on the train so we would go along to the dining car and have tea in proper cups and saucers and sandwiches and lovely fruit cake! no plastic or cardboard cups,we would change trains at Bridgend to take the local train up to the vallies and be met at the other end by my aunt ,my grandmother knew what time the train was due and used to wave her hankie out of the bathroom window ,happy days, well especially in our world although we missed out on having a father around we survived as they say.Although I always wanted to visit my fathers grave in Tunsia which I eventually did,must admit I found that very traumatic but I did feel as though I had laid his ghost to rest,for me at least. Mother never remarried she always said no one would match up to my father although I know she had plenty of offers. Looking back I suppose we were luckier than a lot of kids at that time.

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