大象传媒

I kept moving around at the beginning of the war. I had more time off school than at school and it felt like a long holiday. I went to stay near Oxford. My sister made the arrangements. Her husband was in the ARP. He used to help make sure people were in a shelter during the air raids. He was sent to Oxford for a rest period and stayed in this big farmhouse.

The family were quite well off. They had two cars. One was on blocks in the garage but they had petrol for the other one. I think they were given an allowance because the lady was disabled. I used to work on the farm, going round with the tractor in the corn stooks.

We used to make toys: soap-box type carts with wheels with ball-bearings, spinning tops and tanks out of cotton reels and a piece of candle. We played marbles in the street. I used to play right along the gutter all the way to school. It used to take ages sometimes to get to school like that.

While we were in Oxford, we had a map of Europe with cutout flags to show where the armies were. We listened to the wireless every day.

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