大象传媒

I was evacuated privately, in 1941 when I was six years old, to a village called Gargrave in Yorkshire. This came about because our next door neighbour in Dagenham, Mrs. Carnaby, was a Yorkshire woman and I went to stay with one of her friends or relatives. I was only there for about nine months, but it left a lasting impression on me. They, Tom and Francis Prescott were lovely people and didn't treat me any differently to their daughter, Joan, who was a little older than I. I can remember screaming when my parents left me.I came home to Dagenham just before my father was sent overseas with the 14th Army. Dagenham was bombed continually because of the Docks. It was very frightening. My mother was sometimes machine-gunned on her way to work where she worked on Mosquito aircraft. One of the very frightening things were the mobile guns from Barking Park which made a terrible noise. However, I did enjoy looking for shrapnel the morning after the raids and swapping.
Singapore fell on my father's way (he spent 31/2 years in Burma) and the ship called in at Cape Town for a few days. Whilst there a young girl on a bus spoke to him and asked if he had a daughter and could she write to her. This she did throughout the war, sending parcels also. One contained all the ingredients for a cake, including the candles, for my birthday. Then I wrote to her sister for a while. In 1947, there was a letter from their parents descrbing the King and Queen's visit to South Africa.
As a postscrpt to this , about 12 or 15 years ago, whilst on holiday in the Peak District, when my husband and I were staying at a farmhouse, we discovered the farmer's wife was brought up in Gargrave, we were the same age, attended the same class at school and knew the same children. Unfortunately, we couldn't remember oneanother and had no photos to compare. However, ever since we have exchanged Christmas Cards every year.

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