大象传媒

I lived in North London in a block of flats near to "The Angel" and "Chapel Market", with my parents and brother Bill and sister Violet. My parents were Labour councillors on Finsbury Council. When the war started I was almost 9 years old. We children were evacuated for a short time to Pangbourne near Reading, but we were very homesick and returned to London. My mother crocheted and knitted our dresses and jumpers and she made our dollies out of old stockings with china heads (she bought). We went to doll's hospital to have dollies "mended". We (my sister and I) helped to darn our menfolks socks and to knit socks and balaclavas. We wrote regularly to our dad and brother and when my dad was called up into the army, and when my brother went into submarines (later in the war). My aunt bought a cottage in Tiptree and we went to stay with her briefly but were homesick again. We went down the shelters when the sirens sounded and someone always started us singing. At school I was always nervous, I was always nervous, wondering if my mum was safe and our house was still there. We had a green ration book for my sister, for a short while we had some banananas. Tangerines and oranges were treats we had at Christmas only, and we had few sweets as they were rationed. We mainly had corned beef with potatoes and cabbage for dinner at school. We had reconstituted eggs instead of real ones. Our education was interrupted by running to the shelter for safety during airraids and the bombing was very loud and frightening. The sound of the bombers coming and the doodlebugs made me shake and cringe. The raids were all times of day or night, we did not know when they would be. We saw some American soldiers at dances and Italian prisoners on farms when evacuated. We saw lots of rubble and rubbish where homes used to be and the people who were homeless who were then sent to reception centres to be rehoused. We wrote long letters to our uncles in the forces. It was very dark in the streets at night because of the blackout when all windows had to be covered and no street lights were put on. Wardens would shout if lights showed. Clothing was short as it was rationed, so was food and soap. We did not travel far and there were no signs saying where we were. We carried gas masks and identity cards all the time. We listened to the wireless a lot and did not have any television. We went to the pictures once a week, and on Saturday it was 'children's pictures'. We also had theatres and open air theatre in Regents Park. We queued up for coal for the fire and brought it home on trolleys. We had open fires and no central heating. We did not have washing machines or showers and shared bath water and had little water in the bath, hot water from the gas boiler. We had apples and vegetables which grew in Britain. Some of our aunts and cousins worked in munition factories. Winters seemed very long and cold, summers hot and sunny.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.