大象传媒

OXFORD 1943

I left school when I was 14 years old, because the war totally disrupted my education.

In 1939, I was attending a school which had just been built and had every educational teaching aid at that time: science block, domestic science (now called home economics), art classes, huge games/playing field area, an assembly hall that converted into a gymnasium and a stage for concerts and plays.

But 1939 saw the massive migration of children from the major British cities, to protect them from the perils of the on-coming war, and this meant that the school which I attended, which was in a rural area on the outskirts of Oxford, was to provide a safe haven for them. So the pupils from three London schools (St Clement Dane, Brixton Grammar and Poplar in London) had to be fitted into the school, providing scant opportunity for any of us to use to the full the marvellous facilities - and we all ended up by attending school on a part-time basis, sharing teachers and classrooms.

My 12th birthday came in September 1939, and from that age onwards I was able to achieve only a very limited education, albeit that there was plenty of time to read, something I became addicted to then and has continued throughout my life. However, when I became 14 years old I was able, with my headmaster's reluctant approval, to leave school, on the proviso that he found me suitable employment . . . On 1st January 1941 I set out to work at the head office of a large company which had evacuated from London to Oxford, and here I was to be trained in office procedures, backed up by going to night school (evening classes) in shorthand, typewriting and English language on three evenings a week.

My salary was 17/6d (85p) a week. Ten shillings of this was given to my mother and the remainder kept for bus fares etc. Fortunately, there wasn't much to spend it on or my salary would have gone by day one.

Fortunately my headmaster had picked well, and I thoroughly enjoyed entrance to the world of business. I really did start at the bottom - sorting the incoming and outgoing mail, but I soon moved on to the filing and then to the office machinery: I learnt how to use a comptometer (an early type of calculator, but much bigger) and huge cash registers which occupied a space about 6ft square. Also I learnt about the distribution of goods throughout the UK. Alongside this, I was trying to learn shorthand and typing, and brushing up on English language three evenings a week. By this time I was into my 16th year.

As you can imagine, I didn't have a lot of free time, and from being under-occupied at school, I quickly became over-occupied, finding it difficult to fit every thing in. We were very fortunate in the Oxford area that our lives were not disrupted by air raids (rumour now says that Hitler had his sights on Oxford as a site he wanted!) but our nights were often disrupted by the sirens. My father had built an air raid shelter at the bottom of the garden, but fortunately we never used it. Gas masks had to be carried everywhere. Around the age of 16 (I can't remember exactly when) I joined the ARP, and every time the siren went my sister and I had to go to the assembly point. Again, fortunately we did not have to go to any of the bombed areas, though at this time London and surrounding areas were being devastated by raids. We were always aware of the tragedies, and in the office where I was working many of the staff had evacuated from London with the firm and would go home to London for the weekend, and some did not return.

Altogether it was a difficult period of time to be 16 years old, and what free time one had was spent in enjoying life: we had little or no money to spend on clothes - which were rationed anyway, sweets and luxuries such as make-up were very scarce, and one usually relied on older sisters to share. Youth clubs featured a lot at first, but then dances and boy friends predominated.

My enthusiasm for work tended to lose its novelty, and when I was 17, but not quite old enough to join one of the services, I fancied going into the Women's Royal Naval Service! (Much against my parents' approval, who were determined to keep me out of harm's way, if possible - I never achieved this ambition.)

I continued to live at home, living daily with a war which seemed as though it was going on for ever. I came from a very happy family with lots of things going on, so never had time to say I was bored or disinterested in anything. My parents had a difficult time but we were never allowed to feel sorry for ourselves, for which I am so grateful.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.