大象传媒

My wartime memories are based on my life in
Worcester with my parents
Nora and 'Bert Fox.
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At the beginning of 1939 we lived in a flat over a shop in College Street, Worcester; we enjoyed the sound of the cathedral bells.
In those pre-war days we often heard the sound of convoys of heavy military vehicles passing by during the night.

I attended Red Hill Primary School, then located in Foxwell Street. If I caught the bus at the Cathedral stop the fare was three farthings and an orange ticket. If I walked down to the Bath Road junction the fare was a halfpenny and I had a blue ticket.

Later that year we moved to a house in Bolston Road part of the way up the Bath Road. We were there on 3rd September 1939. My father was a telephonist, working at the Worcester exchange, but on that Sunday he had been asked to man the
Evesham Exchange because the regular man was on holiday. He went to Evesham by train; there were few cars around in those days. Not many people had private
telphones at that time. Some people had a wireless, of course there were no portable ones available at that time.

My father spent a routine day putting through calls. We didn't have a telephone so were unable to tell him that war had been declared. He had no radio so was unaware of the news. He finished his day and returned by train to Worcester. He didn't speak to anyone on the journey and there were no news placards on the stations he passed through. He remained unaware of the news until he arrived home.

He immediately noticed that mother and I had been busy sticking brown paper strips onto the inside of our windows. We had put off doing that until the news confirmed that England was at war with Germany.

I was due to start at the Girls' Secondary School in Worcester, but the school was asked to accommodate pupils from a Birmingham Girls'School. We attended school in the mornings and the girls from Birmingham went in the afternoons. That suited by friends and I very well, we were able to go to Cripplegate Park and play on the putting green every afternoon. That only lasted until Christmas however, then the Birmingham girls returned to their own school.

At our school, the science laboratory had cupboards beneath the benches, we had to shelter in these when the air raid siren was sounded. That caused much hilarity when we had to practice getting into the cupboards!

As I hadn't been at that school before the war, I accepted things as they were, Worcester was not too troubled. We did of course had the black out, the street lighting disappeared and we had only a little light at pavement level.

In 1945 I secured a place at a London Secratarial College, but it had been evacuated to Shropshire and I didn't know whether I would be starting at the Shropshire or London college. They moved back to London, much to my delight, I was looking forward to living in London.

By this time we had moved to a flat over a butcher's shop in Sidbury, Worcester. On VE Day, I could see crowds of people walking around the streets in jubilent mood. They were all so happy that the war in Europe had come to an end and the prospect of victory in Japan was near. People were relieved and ready to celebrate and to start life afresh in an atmosphere of peace.

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THIS STORY WAS SUBMITTED TO THE PEOPLE'S WAR SITE BY Rosalind M. Parish ON BEHALF OF AUDREY PEARSON AND HAS BEEN ADDED TO THE SITE WITH HER PERMISSION. THE AUTHOR FULLY UNDERSTANDS THE SITE'S TERMS AND CONDITIONS. 2.8.05

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