大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Carol Greenwood of Bradford Libraries on behalf of Constance Galilee and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

When, on September 9th 1939, Neville Chamberlain announced that we were at war with Germany, I was in an hotel at Malvern awaiting the popular Malvern Festival.
The hotel was full of stage and screen actors intending to participate in the festival at the nearby theatre.
We were all gathered in the lounge at 11am waiting for the broadcast which would decide our actions for the next 6 years or more.
Ralph Richardson leaned over the piano and said to Yvonne Arnaud "Give us a tune whilst we are waiting Yvonne" and she obliged with the Minute Waltz, played superbly.
Then came the dreaded announcement that we were at war. The lounge emptied magically, luggage was dragged through the foyer, everyone rushed for home.
As we went north we passed convoy after convoy of army vehicles, full of troops. All the "Terriers" were on the move. Everyone's hearts were in their boots. I think we all expected to be bombed on the way home. In fact, nothing seemed to happen for many months. (The Phoney War) Troops mustered, were trained and waited.
I went back to the Midlands, where I was employed as a teacher of Domestic Science. Imagine teaching cookery when almost every ounce of food was rationed!
However, before that, children at risk were to be moved to regions considered safer.
Despite being neat an airfield and amongst arms producers, our little mining village surrounded by Coventry, Wolverhampton and Birmingham was considered safe and had hundreds of children sent to the district from Liverpool, many from the slum district there.
I had the job of feeding a hundred or two before they were allocated to local people for lodging.
Poor little scraps... standing in a huge school main hall, like cattle at an auction.
I shall never forget two beautifully dressed and handsome little brothers, 11 and 8 years old. They were German Jewish refugees. The older boy flatly refused to be parted from his brother. He had promised his mother never to leave him. They were left until last of all. Then a kindly soul, who really lacked the space for more than one, took them away. They later attended my schooland were immensely popular.
The next problem was clothes. Quite a lot of the children were lousy, and some of the clothes they wore were unspeakable. Out went an appeal and the clothes poured in.. The needlework teacher and I sorted them for size and sex. I, or rather, my classes saw to the washing and ironing; the needlework classes dealt with repairs where necessary. It was not a wealthy community, but the kindness and generousity shown were unbelievable.
I called in at a tiny, three roomed cottage, the evening of the children's arrival, to find a steaming zinc bath, with a small tot at each end, on a rug before a blazing fire in the iron range. Each of the toddlers had a parrafin cloth on their heads (lousy, she whispered). Two cotton short sleeved vests were warming on the oven top, intended as night attire. "They aren't getting into my bed until they are clean" she whispered as I left. She was a single elderly woman as poor as a church mouse, and lived alone. I think that these children would have had a happy home there.

Whenever I hear the "Minute Waltz" now I am 26 again, bewildered, apprehensive and rather afraid.

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