大象传媒

I was 13yrs old when war started, and living in Tottenham, London, helping to look after a sick aunt in Enfield. About two weeks after war was declared I joined my mother in Clavering with my young brother who would have been about 8yrs old. We lived in a cottage called "The Nook" with 5 acres of ground and we had about 7 evacuees staying with us at the time. Sleeping arrangements were basic, about 3 to a bed. There was no gas, electricity or telephone. Water was connected soon after we arrived, before that we had to go to the stand pipe down the road. We had an Elsan toilet until my uncle and father dug out a cesspit about a year later. The children went to church (about a 3 mile walk) and school (also 3 miles away ). I left school at 14 and helped my mother rearing pigs and turkeys for food. We also had an orchard with apples, pears, plums, which my father used to take back to his greengrocery shop in Tottenham. When I was 15yrs my mother died suddenly following an infection, this was before the availability of penicillin. She was only 42yrs old. The evacuees all went back except Malcom, aged 9, whose mother wouln't have him back. I looked after my brother and Malcom and Dad came down at weekends. I coped with all the funeral arrangements and keeping the house together. Sometimes when Dad wanted a break, he would come to the cottage and I would go up to the shop and stay with my granny who also lined in Tottenham. I used to cycle to Bishops Stortford at 5am to get the train to London and I returned about 9pm. I had to leave the boys alone all day, goodness knows what they got up to! I did all the shopping, went to market with the milkman on a Tuesday and there was a shop near to the windmill which was about a mile and a half away. My aunt had been looking after my disabled sister from when she was about a year old. My uncle went to get some more of my sister's tablets and because the road had been blown away he rode on the pavement. He got stopped by a policeman and fined half a crown.
I met my husband when I was 17 1/2 yrs old, and married at 19. We stayed in the cottage for about a year, with the boys, until war ended and we went back to London. As soon as Malcom left school his mother took him back home but he still keeps in touch with us now.
I had my heart set on joining the Wrens, but they wouldn't accept me because of the boys.

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