大象传媒

I was born in London in 1938 and was evacuated with my mother in September 1939 to Thetford in Norfolk. My mother was a single mother, and had no family or other support so she had to work. First as a landgirl then at the hotel in Thetford as a chambermaid. I think she probably changed jobs because she missed seeing me.

I can remember as a small child spending time with her in the hotel annex, probably on her day off, but was fostered. The first foster carer(s) was less than satisfactory and I developed rickets, so my mother told me. The cook at the hotel was very kind to my mother and I, but could not read or write and I remember thinking, as a small child learning to read and write, how strange that an adult couldn't read or write. My second set of foster parents were totally different, kind and caring, although firm but certainly not well-heeled. Their home was a thatched cottage, with no running water or inside toilet or bathroom, with an earth closet in the back garden, which I hated because of the smell and the spiders.

When I was older I would run home from school, stopping at the hotel when I could to see my mum and use the toilet in the hotel so that I could put off as long as possible the need to use the earth closet. They fostered another girl, older than me, who eventually went back to her parents, plus a daughter of their own, slightly older than me. In addition, Aunt Nell, as I called her, cared for her father and her brother, who was badly handicapped because of cerebral palsy, although as a small child I didn't know or appreciate this. She went every morning to shave them both and her brother, Billy, was my friend and I was his interpreter, accompanying him on his slow walks around the town and to the cinema and telling people what he had said when they couldn't understand him.

I was a happy child and those days in Thetford seemed sun-kissed, and we children seemed to leave home in the morning and be able to wander freely for the whole day but that was probably during summer holidays.

I only remember the air raid warning one clear moonlit night as we were on our way back home from friends. Although I was separated from my mother 99% of the time, to me that was the norm, and not the heartache it must have been to older children who were separated from their families.

In later life I wondered at being evacuated to Thetford which was surrounded by RAf and USAF bases! We regularly saw US airmen in Thetford and I think there were dances and socials to which they were welcome visitors.

When I was 3 my mother met and married a British soldier who came from Darlington. I remember a very long train journey from Thetford to Darlington which started and finished in the dark in a train full of army personnel.
I didn't like Darlington, nor I think did my mother because we returned to Thetford, probably to be near my stepfather who was based down there and I continued to live with Uncle Arthur and Aunt Nell.

When eventually we came to live in Darlington, there were still Anderson shelters in people's back gardens and yards and in the house we moved into with my stepfather's brother the shelter was under the stairs! At the bottom of the street was a park with air-raid shelters in and as a child growing up I can remember we children would run up and down the huge mounds these shelters made. I was ridiculed because of my 'country' accent and found it difficult to adjust to a new life with strangers, although it was wonderful to be able to see my mother every day and live with her in a proper home.

I remember clearly the effects of rationing, shortages of staple items and complete ignorance of other exotic foods such as bananas. My mother would tell me tales of all these wondrous delicacies which would one day be ours when rationing was ended but remember being distinctly disenchanted when the real thing came along, such as my first banana which I tried to eat, skin and all, until my mother showed me how it was done. It is difficult for people with supermarkets full of every possible foreign food to appreciate now the effect of the virtual seige we lived under with what ships could cross the N Atlantic needed to bring essentials for the war effort.

We think we were allowed 2 oz of sugar per person per week or the equivalent in 'sweets' but the real problem in our house was the tea ration, which was equally meagre and ways to stretch it included saving the tea leaves from the teapot and drying them in the oven to use again and swapping sweet/sugar rations for another family's tea ration. The margarine we had was government issue and when we finally could buy proprietary brands I wanted the government issue back!

The house we came to in Darlington was a Victorian terrace house with no indoor plumbing apart from a flush toilet in the yard and a cold water tap in the kitchen. We moved into our council house in 1953 and were overcome with delight at having a bathroom with hot and cold taps, the water being heated from the fire in the lounge (sitting room).

I know people have published horror stories of their lives as evacuees but I have happy memories of my childhood in a country town.

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