大象传媒

The boy's school in Chertsey was another place where we shared facilities. There was a big gymnasium where we did floor exercises and learned to climb ropes. We used the Anderson shelters, which were dug in the school grounds, to change into our gym kit. This was a very short dress with an elasticated waist combined with the obligatory navy blue knickers. Some days we would be playing cricket or rounders in the recreation ground next door to the boy's school, so we had to jog along the main road in this outfit. We must have caused quite a stir in those days.

In June 1942, Dad arrived in Chertsey still wearing army uniform and riding a lady's bicycle.
This was my birthday present. I think he had ridden it all the way from London because he had some difficulty straightening his legs.

Around the end of 1942 or early 1943, Joan and I had to move again. We went to live in a little terraced cottage with a couple who were quite a bit older than anyone we had stayed with before. The man worked in a foundry. His wife always had a pint mug of tea ready for him as soon as he arrived home from work. In the oven of the kitchen range there would be a tin tray containing melted cheese. This was eaten with a large raw onion which was sliced with a penknife and dipped into the cheese. His wife was unable to read so in the evenings her husband read the daily paper to her. He was quite short sighted so he needed to use a magnifying glass - a very badly cracked round one. At the weekend he went out around the middle of the day and when he returned he would usually spend the rest of the afternoon asleep under the table in the front parlour. We thought we knew the reason why!!

Our bedroom was upstairs and light was provided by a candle placed on the landing outside the door. I was nearly 15 then and liked to put my hair into curlers for the night so it took a bit longer to get ready for bed. If we were too long we would hear, 鈥淗urry up you girls, the candle is guttering down鈥�.

The parents of a school friend had a shop where we managed to get a torch and batteries which were not easy to come by during the war. Sometimes, when we had bought our sweet ration, we would take it to bed at night and make a tent with our knees under the bed-clothes and have a late night feast by torch-light. I don't know how our teeth survived!

In 1943 we were occasionally allowed to go home to London during school holidays. We lived in a first floor flat and when the sirens sounded an air raid warning we were supposed to go to a concrete shelter which had been built in the yard of the ground floor flat. One night, during one of these home visits, the rest of my family were in the shelter when they realised that I was not with them. The noise of the gunfire and aeroplanes had not woken me, so one of the family had to come back to call me. Although there were many bombs and land-mines dropped in Battersea, our flat suffered only 'blast' damage. Battersea Park was used as a base for anti-aircraft guns, searchlights and barrage balloons.

After a few months in our new billet, Joan and I were told that our hostess had to go into hospital and that her daughter, who lived nearby, would be keeping an eye on us. Her husband was going to work as usual so we felt quite grown-up, being trusted to look after ourselves most of the time. We did our best to have the pint mug of tea ready when our host arrived home from work and all seemed to be going well. The Easter school holidays were about to start and we were going to London. Dad had been discharged from the army as unfit so it was to be a family gathering. Joan and I were thinking about the food rationing and wondering what we could take to help because Mum could not have our ration books. The only thing we thought we could take was tea. So we carefully worked out what we thought was our fair share of the tea in the tea caddy and left a note explaining what we had done, making sure that we had left plenty for the daily pints of tea. This action was not very well received. When we returned after the holidays our clothes had been tipped out of the tin trunk, which had been our 'chest of drawers', and left by the front door. The school authorities had been informed about our terrible deed and they were waiting to take us to our new lodgings.

Joan went to a home where there was another evacuee from London. They became great friends and kept in touch for many years after the war. They were alone in the house one evening when there was an air raid warning. They took refuge under the table, which was known as a Morrison shelter, made of steel and strong enough to protect people from falling masonry. The house was damaged by blast from a bomb so there was a bit of a mess when their hostess returned home - surprisingly her first concern was for the welfare of her cat.
Fortunately bombs were rare in Chertsey.

I had to go into a hostel while they found a billet for me. All the children there were younger than me. I hated the communal washing facilities and a pencilled note in my diary, 13 May 1943 stated, 鈥淗aving a lonely time at the hostel鈥�. However, I didn't stay long. On Sunday 16th I was taken to the home of an elderly widow where there was another girl who went to the same school but was slightly older than me.

During the previous few months I had decided that I would like to be confirmed and had studied the catechism to prepare for this. Unfortunately it was discovered that I had not been baptised, neither had any of my sisters. Apparently our father thought this was better left until we were old enough to make our own decision. So arrangements were made for all of us to be baptised together and my mother came from London on 26th May for the ceremony
at St. Peter's Church in Chertsey. My confirmation followed on 30th May which also happened to be my father's 42nd birthday. Two days later it was my 15th birthday and my diary entry says that I received two shillings(10p), a bar of chocolate and some slippers.

In this latest billet, we two girls had good training in the responsibilities of looking after a home, there were daily tasks to perform. On Thursday mornings we had to dust and polish in the sitting room before we left for school and on Fridays do the same for the dining room. In between whiles we kept our bedroom clean and tidy. On Sundays we helped to prepare the vegetables for dinner. Our hostess liked baked onions and as I was the only one who could deal with them without weeping, peeling the onions was often my job. My sister Joan and I usually met to go to church and I was always aware of the smell of onions when kneeling in prayer.

Rationing was dealt with very fairly by our hostess. We had a dish each, containing two
ounces of butter and two ounces of margerine which was our ration for the week. Another contained our sugar ration which was for a month. This was the time when I stopped taking sugar in my tea. Our one pound jar of jam had to last for a month so I usually chose blackcurrant jelly, which went a long way. Our hostess used her sugar ration to make jam, using the victoria plums, apples and raspberries that grew in her garden. We didn't taste any of that. When we arrived home from school, around 4.30, the table would be set ready for tea and we would be asked, 鈥淗ow many slices?鈥� The usual response was, 鈥淭wo please鈥�. I think if we had asked for three she would have collapsed in shock. I'm not sure if bread was rationed at this stage in the war. After tea we settled down to do our homework then any spare time was used by knitting sweaters for the Merchant Navy. (My husband's eldest brother was in the M.N. I wonder if he had one of my sweaters?). The three of us sat in front of the fire listening to the radio as the needles clicked, but sharp at 9 pm we two girls had to depart and get ready for bed.

August 1943, the school summer holiday began. My sister and I met each weekday morning to go to work on a farm. Lots of schoolchildren went. We pulled carrots and radishes, picked up potatoes and got severe backache hoeing rows of onions with a short hoe. Bent over and moving backwards you couldn't always follow the row and sometimes when straightening up for a rest you would find that you had done part of the next girl's row. We were paid one shilling (5p) a day and had refreshments from a W.V.S. wagon that came to the farm. Some of us ate the odd carrot or radish during the day!!

After two or three weeks farming we went home to London for the rest of the holiday. I decided to make the journey by bicycle. My diary entry says, left Chertsey at 8.30 am, took two hours and twenty minutes to reach London. On arrival we heard that our grandfather (Mum's father) was missing from home. A few days later there was news that he had been found wandering and taken to St.Thomas's Hospital. He was transferred to Botleys Park Hospital, near Chertsey, where he had two minor operations, but sadly, he died a week later.
We attended his funeral in Tooting, south west London before returning to Chertsey for the new school term.

The river in Chertsey was where we learned to swim. There was a special section with a stone jetty and a hut for changing. To gain a certificate for Life Saving, we had to dive down from the surface of the water to the river bed and pick up a handfull of stones to prove that you had touched the bottom. We also practised swimming to the shore with a 'rescued' person. There were barges moored at intervals along the middle of the river to prevent enemy landings. Boys and girls used to swim out to a barge and climb up the anchor rope onto the barge then dive off and swim back to the riverbank. I decided to try this one day but there was a strong current and I was carried away from the barge. I had a struggle to swim against the current and get alongside the barge and had barely enough strength left to climb up the rope. For the return journey I had to slide down the rope because I couldn't dive, but the swim back wasn't so worrying because there was plenty of riverbank to land on. I did manage to get my life saving certificate eventually.

In June 1944, it was time for the important General Schools Certificate examinations, (similar to todays 'O' levels I think), usually about 8 or 9 subjects including maths and English. Sometimes we could hear the V1 doodlebugs (flying bombs) throbbing overhead and had to have the shutters closed over the windows. Pens would stop while we listened for the engine to cut out, knowing that it would drop down at that moment. Apparently this tension was taken into consideration when the papers were being marked.

Certain grades were needed to be able to remain at school for another two years while studying to qualify for entrance to university. My plan was to be a nurse, but I couldn't start training until I was eighteen. My grades did not qualify me to stay on at school, but as I had done reasonably well the headmistress told me that I could remain with the school and maybe
do some kind of work for them. So I remained in my billet living a fairly strict routine, one that today's 16 year olds would probably revolt against.

A special 'after dark' pass from the school allowed me to go out to St. John Ambulance classes in the evening. A certain amount of school homework had to be done and more knitting of Merchant Navy sweaters kept me busy until the same 9 pm bedtime. The daily routine that we had followed over the past year continued, except that the other girl in the billet used to cycle home every weekend. On Saturday I would have to pluck up courage to ask my hostess for permission to go to the cinema in the afternoon. Occasionally she would invite me to stay up late on a Saturday night to listen to the radio and have a cup of cocoa.

The V2 rocket attacks started, but at the end of 1944 it was decided that it would be safe for the school to return to the London building in New Kent Road, Bermondsey. In January 1945, Pyrcroft House was closed and classes started in London.The pupils were returned home gradually, so for a while it was necessary for some of us to travel by train from Chertsey to Waterloo each day to go to school. We enjoyed riding in corridor trains with compartments where we could shut the door, pull down the blinds and stop any other passengers spoiling our fun.

I don't remember exactly when I returned to live at home in Battersea, but I know the whole family were together by VE day, 8th May 1945, when I went with my friends to Trafalgar Square to join the celebrating crowds.

I left school on 25th July 1945 aged 17 years. Dad was not keen for me to be a nurse and decided that he couldn't support me for another year at school so I had to find a job. Joan left school as well and we started work on 7th August in the offices of The Pharmaceutical Society at Bloomsbury Square.

The odd thing was that the department I was to work for had still got all of the pharmacists' records stored in a house in Mayfield, near Ashbourne in Derbyshire. So I had to leave home again and join the office staff living in Birdsgrove House.

Copyright 漏2004 Gladys Williams

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