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I never used to get to school until about 10 o'clock in the mornings. In the evening my father would collect me and sometimes we would go to a cafe called Clissolds for rissoles and chips before we took the long drive home. My mother must have been very lonely during the day. She sometimes went to Ringwood market on a Tuesday with the Sticklands. In the holidays I used to go too. These were the highlights of our life. After the first winter in the farmhouse, my parents rented a caravan from someone and it was parked in the orchard under the apple trees. At last my mother could give us some home cooking and had a heater to keep us warm. It was an Eccles caravan. It had a partition across the middle and its own toilet. Only an Elsan can, but at least it was better than going to the outside privee belonging to the farm. While we lived in the caravan 1 had my first birthday party. I was seven or maybe eight. Some children from school came out to play and have tea. They were tickled with the outside toilet with the twin holes and kept going back there.
It was a lot of laughs. I have photographs of that afternoon. The caravan had stable doors and the photographs show Mrs Day and her daughters, Moya and Sheila with Ann Sawyer and her mother. Ann's father was a prisoner of war of the Japanese. He did not come home until long after the war ended. I remember him as very, very thin and yellow looking; but after a few months he put on weight and started a soap business. He did not live very long.
But I digress! In 1943 it was thought safe enough to go back to Southampton to live. My mother found a flat to let in the centre of a large manor house in Bassett Heath Avenue. The house was divided into three sections. On each side of us we had other families living. One side was the Jackson's. Alan Jackson is Petronella's Godfather. His brother Peter was older and played with the Lambert boys - always war games. They were rough and frightened me with their constant 'Ack-ack’ gun noises. Alan was only a baby. He was still in a pram when I remember him. Mrs Jackson, his mother became my mother's best friend. She lived with her mother, Mrs Leach, who became Sherriff of Southampton after the war. On the other side lived the Webb’s. They were ballroom dancing teachers. They used the ballroom of the big house for their lessons and when I was a teenager I went there regularly for dancing lessons until I got my gold medal in Ballroom Dancing. Pat Baker lived down the road. She and I became best friends and we used to play together. She had a swing in her garden. I think her father was in insurance. Mrs Baker was very pretty. They used to ask me to tea. They had a beautifully furnished house. Lovely curtains and carpets with quality furniture all polished and shiny with lots of silver. I felt ashamed that our house was not furnished like theirs. We had huge empty rooms. One room had no furniture in it at all and 1 used to cycle around and around for hours. The garden was long and had those flowers in it called 'Red hot Pokers'. There was a garage covered in bark stripping.
I suppose I was rather a lonely little girl. Being an only child and living isolated on the farm with my parents and other adults, I decided then that when I grew up I would have four children so that they would never be lonely like me. Furniture was a terrible problem in those days. There was only second hand furniture to buy; because there were no factories making it. My mother went to auctions and sometimes I would go with her. The Parker—Knoll suite Dominic has now was the first thing she bought. She saw it at the pre-view and decided to buy it; but a man bid for it from Shepherd and Hedgers, the local furniture shop, now owned by Maples. In the end we bought it from the shop having followed the delivery van from the auction rooms to the store to make sure that no one saw it and bought it before us. We were very excited and proud to have it delivered to our new home in Bassett Heath Avenue. It was originally 'Limed-oak'. That is it looked a grey colour. It was very modern in those days. The covers of the cushions were made of sacking type material with big shapes like '6's' and fawn trimming. It suited the large room we had as a living room and because there was a dining room table and a desk/sideboard to keep cutlery in with four dining room chairs covered as they are now, only newer, in red leatherette looked really smart. It was my mother's pride and joy until the day she died. We had beds and sheets, blankets and eiderdowns but not much else. Clothing was a problem because there again, we had clothing coupons. People used to have to go to dressmakers to have things made-up. Clothes in the shops cost a lot of money and the coupons as well had to be reckoned up. Even if you could afford the money, you often could not afford the coupons. Sometimes you heard of people buying coupons on the 'Black Market. Poor people would sell their coupons for money but this was an offence and you could get into terrible trouble. Shop assistants used to keep things ‘under the counter’ for their regular customers. Tyrell and Greens was the worst place for this. Mothers used to buy school vests and knickers many sizes too big for their children and hoard them until they grew into them. Mrs Day was the worst for this. She would take my mother upstairs and show her drawers of wool jumpers and school blouses still in their packets, unworn but all waiting to be grown into! This had the effect of making us feel poor and deprived! My life at school progressed steadily. There was stability in my life. I made friends with special nuns who had shared with me some of the worst times of the Blitz. Instilled into us was always the thought of the sacrifices our parents had made to give us this special education and how we must never 'let them down'. For this reason I always did my best at school. I would have been too ashamed not to.

ENTERTAINMENT
It must be very difficult to imagine a world without Television. We did have the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio. It was called the ‘wireless’. Everyone sat huddled over it in the kitchen or living room to listen to the 6 o'clock news after tea in the evening. It was before the days of transistors so each home only had one wireless. There were lots and lots of other things we didn’t have. Not because we were poor; but because they hadn’t been invented! Washing Machines, like Nylon stockings, came from America, as did all the things then that saved labour. There are so many things nowadays that you take for granted like Microwaves and Dishwashers, food processors and frozen food. We had never heard of half these things. Its not very long ago you know - only forty years or so; but it must be as difficult to imagine life without them as it is to imagine the world here before you were born! Entertainment was largely self-made during the war. There were several cinemas in Southampton but I never wanted to go after seeing Snow White when I was four and being terrified of the wicked witch! There was always the danger too of being in a crowded place if an Air Raid Warning went off. I went to tap dancing classes from the age of three. I became exceedingly good. Shirley Temple was the idol of the entertainment world and I suppose that made my mother want me to be able to tap dance like her. We were about the same age. When the war started there was a ready-made audience of soldiers who had to be entertained.
My dancing teacher planned extravagant ‘Displays'. She hired the Avenue Hall in the Avenue and rehearsed all her pupils for revues. On one occasion she built the whole show around me as the star but I was ill with some childish complaint and could

not perform. The audience of soldiers on these occasions would clap and cheer. They were only very young I realize now. We used to go around the rows in the intervals giving away cigarettes. Sometimes they wore the khaki tops and royal blue trousers of the wounded that were hospitalised. These were the lucky troops who had been rescued from Dunkirk I grew to realize as I got older and began to understand what had been going on. One particular tap dance I can remember vividly. My teacher had started to dance in top hat and tails with a long black cane. I had to come on the stage after her identically dressed and copy exactly what she was doing. She asked me what I was doing there and I replied that I'd come to dance! We then continued doing the routine together. I loved the applause and it’s from then that I grew to love the stage and everything to do with it. My other hobby at the time was horse riding. I started at the age of six while we were out in the New Forest. I used to have riding lessons on a Saturday morning on a little New Forest pony. Later, when we moved back to Southampton I still continued going out to Ashurst or later still rode from Lordshill Hotel around the back of the Municipal Golf Links along the old Roman Road half way to Romsey. Riding was something I continued to do until I was about 26 years old. I used to read a lot. My parents regularly borrowed books from the Library and I used to go too. I joined the Junior Library and read all the Enid Blyton stories, Arthur Ransom and my favourite Malcolm Saville and later still Violet Needham. Cassettes of music were not known but we bought records that we played on the old-fashioned wind up record players. These, of course were not readily available till after the war. The radio was our source of popular music. There were so many wartime songs like 'I'll be seeing you' and ‘ It's a long way to Tipparary'. Everyone used to sing these in the shelters during the Air Raids to keep their spirits up. Anyone who could play the piano was welcome at a party. Birthday parties always had musical games if the mother could play the piano. Mrs Day always played the piano. My mother played a little but only the tunes she knew and not the popular songs and nursery rhymes. Anyway, we didn’t have a piano as we had lost our entire home. I don't think we ever did have one. My mother made me have piano lessons for seven years at school. At the end of those seven years I could play '0 Star of Eve’ and finally convinced her that I would never be musical. I was supposed to spend my lunch times practising at school, as we didn’t have a piano at home - but I never did! I could play scales and arpeggios and 'Chop Sticks' with the best of them but it was in Verse Speaking and Drama that I excelled, not piano!
We went to Tunbridge Wells and stayed for a long time one summer. I remember Tunbridge Wells with the special water that tasted like iron and the tall rocks on the common. There were lovely shops and houses all around because Tunbridge Wells had not been bombed like Southampton. My cousin June gave me some toys that she didn’t want anymore. She gave me a doll, I called 'June' and a nurses outfit that fits you today. These were the only toys I had after the bombing, except my Teddy Bear, of course. Southampton was a very long way from Tunbridge Wells. It took all day to get there in the car we had. Two of my American cousins visited us. They must have been stationed at the famous Air Force base in Lincoln. . So the war gave us a brief chance to meet. They were old enough to feel that they could help to win the war and all four joined up. Denis went into the American Navy and eventually became Commander of a Mine Sweeper in the Pacific. Colin went into the R.A.F. as a bomber pilot and was lost over the Zyder Zee in Holland. He called on us when he came to England. He was so gentle and so very good-looking. His twin brother, Derek, joined up in the Royal Canadian Air Force as a Navigator. He also came to visit his Uncle and Aunt and his little cousin.
Both visits co-incided with the gathering of the forces for the main assault on Germany. They were given embarkation leave before this final duty. The visits were very brief. We had afternoon tea; but I have always remembered them. They made such an impression. I suppose it was the aura of the uniforms and the startling American accents. They gave us presents of sweets and nylons for my mother. Nylon stockings had just begun to come into the country with the G.I's. They were so sheer, just like silk. So much better than the ordinary, thick, lisle stockings which was all we could buy in England. The Americans also introduced Biros to us. They were very coveted. Before Biros we all had ink wells built into our school desks and wrote with pens with nibs that had to be dipped. Those pens made our school work full of blotches and smudges. Biros were so much better.

HOLIDAYS
Holidays were something that we didn’t have during the war. I remember feeling that all I had ever known was wartime and could not imagine what it would be like to live in a world without restrictions and deprivations. I couldn’t remember ‘Before the War’ and to me the War seemed to be forever.
At last the end of the war came. We had V.E. day (Victory in Europe) and then later V.J.day (Victory in Japan). At school we were all given a printed letter from King George VI thanking us for our effort in helping to win the war.
I suppose it must have been in 1948 that we were allowed to cross the Channel. A short cruise was advertised by Southern Railway at Whit sun to visit on S.S. Falaise the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey and St. Malo in France. We embarked on the Thursday night and set sail for Jersey. There were many signs still there of the occupation. Rusty spikes sticking out of the beaches and rusty barbed wire, remains of landing craft and old gun emplacements built of concrete on promontories around the coastlines. I think we were there for the Battle of Flowers and watched as float after float drove past us covered in Hydrangeas. At the end of the procession they were all pulled to pieces and everyone threw flowers at each other, trampling them all into the roads.
At St.Malo we took a ride in a 'Duk’ or amphibious truck that could drive on land and water. They were left by the Americans and used to take people over to Dinard. Before the war Dinard had been a popular resort for the English to spend the summer. The delicious pastries, the pavement cafes and fancy goods amazed us.
I will never forget the sound of the seagulls when I woke up on the Falaise in Guernsey harbour. We went around the island on the charabanc trip and visited the little chapel of shells and again were shown remnants of the occupation.
It was a very long time too, before the bomb damage and remnants of wartime gun emplacements were cleared up in England. The common at Southampton had barbed wire and temporary huts, called Nissen Huts, built for the soldiers and later occupied by the German prisoners of War. It seemed a long time before all traces of those had disappeared.
One day I was cycling down the Avenue back to school after lunch when I was past by a fleet of large black cars headed by a police car and the Lord Lieutenant of the County followed by ---- the car with, sitting in the back seat, Winston Churchill! I stood all alone beside the pavement just by Highfield Lane, holding the handlebars of my bike and in my school uniform with my summer straw hat and blazor. To my undying pride and pleasure he raised his hand to me and gave me the famous ‘V’ sign! It was just for me, alone, and it is a moment I will never forget and perhaps my most important Wartime Memory!

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