大象传媒

IT IS NOW 1939

I was kept very much out of the way, the first I knew about the drama was seeing the poor birds hanging in the scullery, with Tiny whining beneath them. I don鈥檛 know if she was pining for them, or perhaps she thought it was her turn next!
My school was Tennyson St.Junior School, a short distance from our house. We had one dreadful teacher who scared the life out of me. She would ask questions and we had to put our hand up if we knew the answer. I didn鈥檛 have the courage to put my hand up even if I knew the answer because if we were wrong she would humiliate us dreadfully. She was always saying 鈥渨hy aren鈥檛 you like your clever half sister鈥�?
My sister passed Matriculation and went off to the Notre Dame High School, she was taught by the Nuns and later became a Roman Catholic.
I was now twelve years old and had passed the examination to go to Battersea Central School the following September. My mother was busy making my new uniform, which was yellow blouses and black gymslips, she was an excellent dressmaker but I did not appreciate that at the time and longed to go shopping to choose my clothes.
During the summer it was becoming clear that war was not far off and my parents decided that I would have to be evacuated from London. The Battersea Power Station, a huge gasometer, the Royal Arsenal Munitions factory and Clapham Junction Railway Station, the largest railway junction at that time, surrounded us. My mother thought I should go with the seniors of my old school, where I knew the teachers and plenty of friends, rather than go to a new school where I would know no one. She was right, of course.
In August 1939, my sister married Vernon James, known as Jim. They worked at Barnes Pianos in Oxford Street, Jim as a piano tuner and repairer and Winnie a clerk. They rented a flat at Lewisham. We went to the wedding in a black Daimler car, my first car ride. All the children in the street came out to look and waive, it was wonderful.
Now our lives were to be overturned, never to be the same again. It was time for me to be evacuated from London.
My small cardboard case, which I still have, was packed and my father painted my initials in silver paint on the outside. This, and a gas mask in a box hung around my neck and a label with my name on it pinned to my coat was how I set off. Streams of children were taken off to the railway station and given a bag of goodies to eat on the journey. I don鈥檛 remember being very sad, there was so much happening, but now that I have children of my own I wonder how on earth my parents felt.
Our destination was Newhaven in Sussex, right opposite Dieppe in
France, in fact one of the shortest crossings. We were all getting very tired but we had to walk up and down streets and women would come to their doors to choose which child they would have. My friend Joan and I were hoping to stay together. One scruffy looking woman with two small children and a puppy said she would take two. 鈥渢hey look as if they can look after themselves鈥� she said, and I was delighted to go where there was a puppy.
My mother had packed writing paper, envelopes and stamps so that I could write as soon as possible to tell her where we were Apparently my farther was furious and thought the powers that be were mad to send us so near to France.

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