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My grandmother was unmarried and had two children, one was my mother. They lived with my great grandmother. Sometime the two women fell out and when they did my mother and her sister were sent to the children’s home.

During the war a bath outside the back door was used to gather scraps from the week’s meals, cakes and bread and at the end of the week they’d squeeze the water out and make bread pudding. My mother got her guides war service badge for mixing cocoa for the ARP. The cocoa was not like today’s instant you had to mix a little in cold water and then blend with hot milk to stop it going lumpy. And she’d do that for whoever was on duty. Her guide leader was an ambulance driver and he was killed when a bomb fell on their station.

Every year Grandma Bell would go hop picking. They’d take all their furniture with them on the back of a van because they were there for 6 weeks. They all lived in the one room Monday to Friday until Grandpa turned up on Saturday when they got kicked out into the communal hut. They sang ghastly songs about the war which usually ended up with some poor solider lying in a foreign grave.

My mother and her family picked the hops and watched the dog fights above the Kentish fields and one day they got strafed. They’d sit around the fires at night and sing. The kids would pick the hops off the vine and put them in hop pockets (like large sacks on a frame like a big bath) then someone would sow up the sack and off they’d go. What the children were paid for this was never discussed because as children they weren’t entitled to expect payment. They didn’t discuss money.

The great thing about all these aunties was their boyfriends who had lots of spare sweet coupons. They all had lovely names, Sid a rear tail gunner was one. And they all played musical instruments. The parties were good. There was no coca cola in Britain until 1942 when the Americans arrived. They encountered Italian prisoners of war. They were always filling in holes and were so lovely to children.

When she got her scholarship she went to a Quaker grammar school the head mistress wouldn’t allow a mention of the war as they are pacifists. The cinema was a huge part of their lives. They’d queue up with their sandwiches to get a good seat. They’d flash messages onto the screen asking people to go home. For example if someone’s house was bombed they’d be asked to go home!

If a child had seen a movie that no one else had seen in his/her class they’d make it last for a whole week over lunch time. That was the longest one my mother could remember.

During the war there was still Empire Day when you’d march around the school field with flags. The headmaster’s son got the DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross) and they all got a day off. They had air raids every night during the blitz but they still had to go to school the next day although you were exhausted and she said that this is how people were so docile.

When the air raid siren went off during the day the teacher would instruct the children in times tables or spellings down in the shelter, sometimes in their gas masks. They’d have to stand up and shout their number as they left the classroom and again as they entered the shelter so the teacher would know they were all there. Teaching was not a protected occupation. All female teachers had to be single — hence Miss. There were no headmistresses in schools always headmasters.

There wasn’t a great deal of entertainment. My great grandfather would allow the children to listen to his pocket watch as a treat.

Great-grandma Bell worked for a doctor and never paid for medical treatment because she’d do his washing or lay out the bodies of his dead patients. That was a great bonus pre NHS. There were 5 aunts living in the same house and youngest was only 8 years older than my mother. It was awful cause Grandma Bell was always falling out with one of them and she would lock them in a bedroom without food. The sisters would smuggle up food.

My father had four uncles he was the only nephew to all of them. So he got terribly spoiled. He had everything. His father worked at the Woolwich arsenal and there was money there. He wanted football boots which cost a fortune and he was the only one in school to have them. Who knows how much they cost.

Building materials were scarce. My grandfather made a shed in the back garden. He worked in a factory that made propellers. He’d acquire two bricks each day and take them home in his brief case. He’d cut pieces of timber for the roof and put them in his brief case. It took him a year to build the shed.

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