大象传媒

On the 19th March 1940 I made my entrance into a world of trauma.England, my homeland, was at War with Germany. Its invasion of defenceless countries that it decided it had the right to control and dominate having been the catalyst to this event as far as I understand it.
I had an older brother, his 3rd birthday being only days after my birth.
War had been declared the previous September.
Dad knowing he would be called up to serve in the armed forces tried to leave his wife and children as safe as he could, for the Battle of Britain lay ahead in the coming summer and autumn. Dad was called up in that same Autumn to serve in the R.A.F. I was 6 months old. He was demobbed in 1946. Except for his "leaves" he was, as thousands of men, rarely at home thereafter. As a result I never truly knew my Father. He was simply a man that appeared from time to time and vanish again. In my child's mind there was my brother, Mum and me.
My eldest brother contracted whooping cough in that same Autumn of 1940 and being generous passed it to me. I am told I was not at all well, six months old not being a sensible age to contract such an infectious disease. I have had no ill effects from that illness except to "bark like a dog" when I contracted a cold in my later childhood, people stopping me in the street alarmed and asking if my Mother was doing anything to conteract its fierce harshness!
During this first six months of my life and thereafter being bombed by the German airforce lost its novelty. Too many nights spent with Mum and brother in the little Anderson shleter in the garden. Damp and cold. Being so young I needed regular feeding and a bottle hastily put together in the kitchen before we took to the shelter, was brought with us. Initially hot it grew slowly cooler as Hitler's merry men bombed away. London, Woolwich Arsenal, Chatham Dockyard and Biggin Hill airbase. We lived in a small town on the river Thames in Kent at the time. An uncomfortable place to be, the Thames being a silvery beam of glittering water guiding the Lufftwaffe to their targets. If they were turned back by our aircraft they simply unloaded their bombs along the route of the Thames on their way home. My bottle of milk being cold long before the bombardment finished, the fluids had separated and the fat of the milk formed a golden glutinous fluid. Yum Yum! Knowing no differt and being hungry I consumed this delicacy with seeming relish I am told. To this day however, warm milk makes me sick. Cold milk from the frig makes me gag. However, hot and laced with chocolate and sugar I do manage to consume this life enhancing fluid from time to time.
Mum tells me the bombing became so bad we went to relatives in Somerset, staying at various lodgings as well as with them, returning home when the bombing eased.
My own memories are muddled and out of sequnece so I consulted Mum. She's 89 now and I'm very lucky to have her still.
I remember clearly however our neighbours standing on their backdoor steps counting the bombers back from a particular heavy raid on Germany. The silence as we heard the mis-firing engines, watched them limping, gaping holes in some fuselages, bits hanging off, flying low, the exhaustion of the crews seeming to almost reach us, as they sought to bring home these battered warriers of the air, so they could serve yet again their purpose of defence for us all.
I remember also a time when Mum took me and my brother to the public shelter in the nearby recreation ground, the Anderson shelter not deemed to be too safe for such heavy bombing.Mum shoved us and all necessary things into the pram when the air raid warning sounded and with her neighbours ran down the road like a bat out of hell to the safety of this large communal shelter. I remember sitting on one of the seats, my feet dangling, along side my Mum who was on my immediate left. All the ladies, older folk and children were laughing and joking as if it was all fun. I felt only their underlying fear and was bewildered.
For years after the war, the air raid signal be it "warning" or "all clear" sent shivers of sick fear down my spine.
Mum clearly remembers the "dog fights" that used to go on over our heads as the R.A.F. sought to shoot down the Lufftwaffe. To me they seemed like a dream.
After the war Mum kept chickens for fresh eggs. The eggs made me sick, the only egg I had ever known was powdered. It made and still does make the yummyiest scrambled egg, beating fresh eggs hands down. I still cannot eat a really fresh new-laid egg. The white is repugnant to me.
I remember all the windows of our house being blown out by a bomb that landed at the top of the hill.
We were evacuated as a result I believe to the Lake District, the bombing being severe once again. By this time I had a baby brother born December 1943, as well as my big brother. We got on the train at 8.00 a.m. and arrived at our destination in the Lake District at 9.00 p.m. A journey of hell, the train being crammed with Mothers and young children all from the London area so Mum tells me. The house to which we were sent belonged to a rather grand lady. It was large, detached. In its own grounds and had red squirrels amongst the trees! The lady did not want evacuees and was most put out so Mum tells me. I remember her as forbidding. We stayed one week whilst they sorted another refuge for us. This time we went to Mr and Mrs Cannon. There were other families there too, each allocated one room per family, sharing all other facilities. The water supply proved too irregular for Mum, having a small baby to feed etc, so again we were moved. This time a big house. Huge high rooms made into dormitories, campbeds crammed togher. No seats. We sat on the floor and ate our food. We stayed a week. Then we were moved to a place close to the lake itself where the lady was very kind, and would prepare a lovely dinner for us at tea-time when we came home. Wherever we were billeted we were expected to go out all day whatever the weather, so Mum used to go down to the lake itself and meet all the other evacuee Mums and children. The bombing eventually eased up and we travelled back to London on the train to be met by my Grandad (Mum's Dad). The Germans had dropped the first V2 rocket on London that day and Grandad told Mum no one had any idea what the weapon was. The V1 (the buzz-bombs) had been around for sometime. We called them doodle-bugs. You could hear their engines clearly. Then they would cut out and everyone froze waiting for the explosion which depended on how far the bomb's own momentum would take it. Then we all just carried on as normal because that was normal.
I remember we spent one Christmas at my grandparents (Mum's parents) in Essex sleeping in a table shelter placed in their front-room. I was given a lovely teddy-bear dressed in red jacket and blue trousers. Where on earth my grandparents found it I'll never know. It was stolen from the top of our pile of luggage in the Lake District as we moved from the big house with camp-beds to our final lodgings. I cherished that bear very much and was very upset. Mum at the time was up to her eyes sorting out our transport. He's never been replaced until just recently. Nothing like him of course, they don't make them like that any more, but I like my new bear nonetheless.
Mum had an allotment during the war and we used to put the tools in the pram and tramp off so that she could work on it. She kept it up after the war all food and commodities being in even shorter supply than during the war.
Dad was demobed in 1946 and returned home. I never did have a good relationship with him, but came to appreciate his values later in my life and to love him very much.
My unsung hero is my Mum and all other Mums like her with children to young to leave Mum. These Mums made heroic efforts to keep us safe, at times staying in awful billets when evacuated. Many folk were kind, but many did not want evacuee Mums and their broods and made it quite clear we were there under sufferance. The journeys, the bombing, the shortage of food, clothing and all commodities making it even more difficult for each Mum to give to her childlren all that a Mum wishes too. Thank you Mums. You too fought your war as did all others but remain unrecognised to this day. God Bless you all for your loving care of your children of the War.

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