大象传媒

I was eleven years old when the 2WW started. I had been sent to my relatives in North Wales a few days befor. I can still remember standing in the kitchen-doorway with the never to be forgotten voice of Neville Chaimberline "We are at war with Germany"

I reurned home to Kingsbury, NW9 after a few months. Where we lived, was the boundry with Middlesex, therefor, we were not evacuated by the authorities. Schooling was hap-hazard at that time because of the day-light raids. During which we spent most of our time sitting in damp air raid shelters. Singing or saying our tables whilst waiting for the all clear.!!!

When I reached 15 years I started training as Nursery Nurse. The practical part took place in a government day nursery for mothers on war work in local factories. The theory at the local polytechnic. I remeber looking through the window at the mile after mile of army lorries on their way south to the coast in the first days after D-Day. Also, the lorries with Red Cross on them returning some days later with the wounded. At the same time, I had joined the Red Cross as a VAD and worked on the childrens' wards in our local hospital. This was after the allies had fought their way as far as the consentration camps. The mothers and babies who had survived were brought back to the U.K. and placed in various hospitals.

I will never forget these tiny babies clinging to life, covered with blotches of gentin- violet for their skin condition. Holding them and feeding them with a cocktail of nourishing milk and willing them to live. Which they did. One could see the difference in them only after a few weeks. I often wonder what happened to them.

At this time my boy freind was killed on this last bombing raid just 3 months befor the end of the war.

A lot to experience for a 17 year old. That is how it was in those days.

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