大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War website Katrina McAnaspie from Littlehampton Learning Shop and has been added to the website on behalf of Audrey Hindley with her permission and they fully understand the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Why am I an Only Child?

My Mother said鈥︹��..
For the duration of the War
It will be just you and me,
For the duration of the War

An 鈥渙nly child鈥� you will be
There is no other way
鈥淚t鈥檚 all that Hitler鈥檚 fault鈥�,
So that is what you say
鈥淚t鈥檚 all that Hitler鈥檚 fault鈥�,

My Mother said鈥︹��..
Safe in the shelter we can stay,
Ignore the siren鈥檚 wail鈥�
Safe in the shelter we can stay,
Ignore the siren鈥檚 wail鈥�

Shut your eyes, try to sleep
Together we will laugh or cry
Shut your eyes, try to sleep
Together we will live or die.

Dad WILL come back to me
And when the war is over
We WILL be four not three鈥�
When the war is over

My mother said鈥�..

(And we were)

I was 3 years old in 1939. I can remember鈥︹�︹�︹��..
I thought my home was very big, with a long hallway鈥�. but really it was very small. It was in Goucester Place, Littlehampton, West Sussex. There were 13 steps to the stairs and I played 鈥渂uses鈥� on them with my dolls. I was an only child at that time. I remember being called this constantly and it was a long time before I understood what it meant.
I had to make up my own games. There was no indoor toilet, but a bath had been built into the original scullery, with a wooden board across the top. It also served as a place for me to play 鈥渟hops鈥� which I did with books, contents of the larder (no fridges then) and anything I could utilise for a game. I used buttons for cash.

The kitchen range with a fire inside had to be 鈥渂lacked鈥� occasionally when cold (with my help) The food was mainly cooked in or upon the range. The smell of baking was wonderful. There was a shelf over the range where the clock stood. This had a curtain wire with a frilled curtain stretched around it of some 14cm depth. On Birthdays, Christmas etc cards were placed upon the shelf. I remember standing upon a chair and pulling the curtain wire to hear the 鈥減ing鈥� and being told off in case I fell on the range. Across the kitchen, in front of the range a line was stretched to dry washing, all of which had to be washed in the big kitchen sink. I remember the smell of the LUX soap flakes. I liked the smell but it made me sneeze! My Mum would say, 鈥渂low your nose, don鈥檛 sniff鈥�
The toilet was outside, it was very cold sometimes and the handle of the door was too high for me to reach. I had an empty biscuit tin to stand on. The toilet paper was not soft, it was scratchy.

The front room of the house was only for us to go in on Sundays and it was always very tidy. It had its own smell. Like polish. The suite was hard with sloping forward arms. It was shiny brown with rough green fabric seats.

Once I was given five big fragile records of the story of 鈥淪now White鈥�. I loved to listen to them on the wind-up gramophone, which had a handle on the side. Once I had a go at winding it up and then it would not work. Then I sat on one of the records and it broke. It was a bad day for me, I remember crying, I was still three years old.

The middle room of the house was the everyday sitting room. There was a large black wireless with brown canvas over the front , which I poked with my finger, through the open pattern in the wooden case. There were large knobs on the front. I don鈥檛 think I was always naughty, but remember being grumbled at because I would turn the knobs and the wireless made screeching sounds. 鈥淟eave it alone鈥� my Mum would say 鈥淚 need to hear the News鈥� I didn鈥檛 know what News was, but it seemed to be very important to her and to my Dad.

My Dad worked from the age of 15 to 65 at B.C. Floyds in Surrey Street, Littlehampton, where he was the Manager (apart from the war years, about which we will read later on). A lifelong member of St Johns Ambulance Brigade, he was one of three brothers who lived in Maxwell Road after the death of his mother, with two aged aunts named Harris. He married my mother at Burpham Church by Rev Tickner Edwards after a three-year engagement, when she was 18 years old. (She had been in service to the Harrington family, who had a Drapery shop near the bridge in Arundel, since the age of 13. Being the 7th of 8 children, she was put out to work as soon as possible) My parents were loyal members of St James the Great Church in Arundel Road, Littlehampton. In fact the Church was the centre of our life. Praise the Lord.

But what was the interest in the News?? It was 1939

Upstairs in the house there were three bedrooms. My mum and dad slept in one, I slept in the middle one and the third was empty, ready for a baby... who did not appear (until after the War) All the rooms had lino on the floor. It was cold to the feet. There were little oblong mats in each doorway. We would stand them up against closed doors to stop the draught. There was a china wash basin and water jug on a washing stand in the bedrooms, full of cold water. I remember sitting on my bed and trying to throw things into the jug. There was too often a 鈥減lop and a splash鈥� and I got grumbles for that too!!
All the light shades were stitched in panels and had fringes hanging from them and there was a real fireplace in each room in the house. I don't remember there being fires in the bedrooms.
The kitchen was the warmest place and family life centred around it. My mum used to sit me on the edge of the wooden kitchen table with my legs swinging to and fro in the space below. She would wash me there and say, "Now you are 3 years old...try and dress yourself". I remember the first time I did it all myself... except for my pinafore. This pinafore, which had cross over back straps, was red and had tiny pictures of Mickey Mouse on it. (pinafores or aprons were always worn in the house by the women, and the Mums usually wore a scarf wrapped around their hair and tied in a bow on top!) I remember her telling everyone she met that day that I had dressed myself!!
I used to sit on the rug by the kitchen range and play. I remember a doll made from celluloid, with imitation hair. I called her Betty. I pushed a hole in her forhead, but I still loved her. I also loved a soft toy white Scottie dog. One day I was taken on a train journey to an Aunt, who was moving to Chichester. Back at this station (Littlehampton) I realised that I had left the toy on the train. My dad told the porter. I don't recall getting it back and I was sad.
One day we all went in a big lorry. This Aunt was moving to Chichester and my parents helped her with the move. My Uncle had been"called up to the Navy, whatever that was..." Every one was in tears.
I remember sitting among the furniture in the back of the lorry. I found something I thought was a sweet and ate it. I was sick! My mum grumbled at my aunt for leaving things around and then she grumbled at me for eating it...! I was still 3 years old. I often went to stay at Chichester and it has remained one of my favourite places to this day. (Eventually I attended school, there from the ages 11 to 18) (my favourite prayer is that of St Richard of Chichester.)
I don't know if it was 1939 or 1940 but one morning my mum woke me up when it was still dark, dressed me, putting on my hat, coat and a pink fluffy scarf; so it must have been cold outside. My dad was dressed in a brown suit that I had not seen before, he had a funny little hat on his head and on his back there was a brown sack. He had got them on the days he had been away the previous week I was told ...The sky was grey but getting lighter... I remember walking past a fence and seeing the light then dark, light then dark through it. It was taller than me I noticed... maybe unconsciously distracting myself from what I sensed was an emotional moment between my parents. We went to the Railway Station at Littlehampton. I was given a small white ticket so that I could go on the platform too. My dad got on a train...... I didn't see him again for a long time. My mum cried a lot.
(I later learnt that he had been sent to join the Army. I have details which he recorded in diaries about some of those years while on active service in the Highland Division attached to the 8th Army, in Egypt.) I think I was four years old when my mum told me one morning, that as we had no daddy at home to look after us I was to be sent away to live for a while to be safe. I would live with a lady and her husband who WAS at home (I later learnt that he worked on the railway) and that they had a little girl who was just the same age as me. It would be like having a sister. They were called Mr and Mrs Newton and the little girl was called Margaret, but they lived too far away for me to see her (my mother) very often. I still remember how frightened I felt..... We had not been able to go near the beach or the sea front for a long time as there were rolls of barbed wire everywhere. This was to stop any attack from the English Channel.... likewise we were close to Ford Aerodrome and so on. I remember very little about the journey I know it was a steam train and we had to change to another train at least once. I had a small brown suitcase (which I still have) to carry some clothes. I do remember that my dad got last minute leave to arrange to get some of my personal things sent by train soon afterwards.
(I HAVE written in detail many of his experiences in another piece of writting concerning his war service. I still have his kit bag in which he artistically recorded the most beautiful paintings on the reverse, using anything with colour that he could obtain. Scenes of Littlehampton, from memory, being the most awsome)At my new home I made good friends with their little girl Margaret, but I had a problem. I couldn't understand many of the words they used. Many of the words were like a foreign language to me, and her parents voices had a funny sound.I got upset. I wanted my own mum. I later learnt that I was at Long Eaton, Nottingham and the accents were very strong. One day they said that my mum was going to visit me. I was in Heaven I thought, at that news. The telephone was not a household commodity. I had not spoken with her for weeks. The day dawned when my lovely mother arrived and I remember her first words to me were "Iam coming to live with you here" She and my father had pursuaded the aged aunts "Harris" with whom he had grown up in Maxwell Road, Littlehampton, and now living in Long Eaton in the original family home, to let us both stay there. He was posted soon after this although he did manage a couple of home visits beforehand. It was the last time I saw him until I was 9/10 years old. (I returned to this house 2 years ago and met the current tennants who kindly gave me copies of the house deeds. The house backs onto the grounds of Trent Universtiy, and is much smaller that I remember) These aunts spoke with the same accent of course but now I had my mum to share things with. She used to cuddle me and we would laugh together my mimicking the way everyone spoke..... She used to make up funny poems which I have repeated to my own children. One wonderful day I was informed that I was old enough to go to school. It was called Wellington Street School. (it is there to this day and I revisited and took photographs on my fact finding visit 2 years ago) School was to be one of the most wonderful experiences of my life then and forever. School had desks with lids and there were inkwells for pens with nibs, which we were not allowed to "cross". The memory of a black pad of ink on the fingers from deliberating too long on writting, and how formal the lessons were....One day my mother proudly informed the aunts that I could spell ALL my two lettered words, and I was only 5! we learnt by chanting ..."I....t...spells it; u....p....spells up," and so on. We had to lie on a little bed after dinner there in a room next to the classroom. Once the dentist came and we were all taken to him. He took out all our back teeth and then we were put on the little beds to sleep. i remember my mother beign SO cross and saying it WAS NOT NECESSARY. Our dentist (Mr Robertson? Surrey Street?) would be so annoyed. We could not get new clothes very often as there were limited "coupons" for everything and the shops were not always open. Once I remember having a new pair of brown sandals but on the way home from school I stepped off the kerb and put one foot in a puddle. The shoe dried hard and crinkley. My mum cried and said, "you'll just to wear them. I can't get anymore. "I remember feeling very sorry saying that I didn't know it was so deep. I remember wanting a scooter and that I actually got one when I went back to Littlehampton. Ration books there were coupons for food too. There were limited coupons and limited types of food. We didn't know anyone who had access to extra food sources so I later found out that I was given food that was really my mothers. I guess that no mother would say no to a child asking for more. (I remember that she smoked to take away hunger pains and to my sorrow died at the age of 50 years from lung cancer....) but together our lives were full of joy, apart from not having a farther at home. He would send the occasional airmail which was photographed to a much smaller size and keep us informed of his movements as far ass he could. On birthdays and at christmas mother would send me a card "from him" in her handwritting. Of course when I realised this I thought he was dead. When I was about 6 years of age my mother suddenly announced that we would go back home and take a chance that Hitler "would not get us" "If we are going to be killed we will be killed together," were her words, I remember to this day.Once we got back to our house, my mum was told she would have to a) get a job b)have people billeted in the house as there were spare rooms. Being unskilled, she went to work in the kitchens at Elm Grove and loved the work. The people who came to live in the house were Connie and Alf Schofield he was in the RAF. They stayed until she had a baby and then they were moved on. There was an enormous air raid shelter erected in the middle room of the house. It filled the whole room. We were supposed to sleep in it but I refused and my poor mother had to carry me downstairs when ever there was an air raid warning. We would play LUDO by torchlight in the Anderson Shelter. The shelter had wire mesh which slotted into the sides. We were used to the sound of the air raid warnings and we had to carry gas masks with us where ever we went. Once the siren went as we walked along Cornwall Road on our to school. We all had to lay down along the walls in front of the houses. I don't think the school was bomed that day but it may have been the occasion when the house besidethe congregational church in Arundel Road was hit. A nomb did fall in the field beside the school once and left a crater. Sometimes we heard the dreaded whining sound of the doodlebugs (flying bomb) and just hoped that the sound would not stop when overhead. If it stopped you had to rush to a shelter.

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