大象传媒

Apparently I had told my parents when I was three that I wanted to be an artist. I showed an above average gift in that direction and so it was when in town I would start with some reverence at the purpose built School of Art, very old and imposing with its glass roof for the life drawing room. Someday I would go there!

It was not to be. In the early years of the war it received a direct hit with a bomb and was completely flattened. In 1943, I had to make do with the temporary Art School which had been squeezed into the Technical College. At fifteen I had left the High School with a reasonably good School Certificate and a Scholarship to the School of Art from the North Riding. I was a teenager unable to love clothes because with the limited clothing coupons there was no choice. Also unable to love makeup and the et ceteras of a young girl reaching maturity. It was a case of 鈥榳hat you don鈥檛 have you don鈥檛 miss鈥� and there was no point in thinking about it. I was glad to be a full-time student although the necessary evening classes posed a problem for my parents. The winter evenings involved walking there and back often in complete darkness. It wasn鈥檛 any easy journey and sometimes I couldn鈥檛 make out where I had got to. Darkness, caused by the black-out could be very disorientating!

During one of those times I was talking back up our street, thought I had reached our house, went through the gate and opened the front door. Standing in someone else鈥檚 port a totally unfamiliar lady said 鈥淗ello鈥� in a rather scared voice. I apologised and we ended up laughing! Pitch black night, wrong house! I never told my parents about various episodes attending evening classes. I knew they would probably feel responsible and not let me go. It was about a mile to the Art School, not far, but in the dark, sometimes a time of danger!

I used to walk with quite big strides down the middle of the road, my long hair tucked into a riding mac. We were allowed to wear trousers, something not approved of in those days 鈥� because we had to do life drawing sitting astride a donkey. A purpose-built construction for housing a drawing board and a student. I kept my hands in my pockets and whistled! It still didn鈥檛 stop a twinge of fear when I walked under the railway bridge. It was excessively dark there and my imagination would see hands shooting out in the blackness and grabbing me.

Invariable nothing happened, but one night when I was walking back home I felt more apprehensive than usual. Under the bridge in pitch darkness, a hand shot out and grabbed me by the wrist. I can honestly remember it seemed a sort of relief that at last, it had happened! As we got out the other side, I could just see it was a large soldier, the worse for drink who was handing onto me. It soon became obvious he wasn鈥檛 going to let go, so I kept him walking and talking. 鈥淲as he married? Yes. Did he have children? Yes. You must be missing them? Yes.鈥� And anything else I could think of. By the time we reached Falsgrave, I felt sure there would be someone on duty in the air-raid warden鈥檚 post on the corner, who I could call out to. There was no one about anywhere. So we still went on with no sign of him letting go of my wrist.

By now he could see trees looming up the hillside in front of us and said 鈥淭hat鈥檚 where we鈥檙e going.鈥� I said, 鈥淚 can take you a much better way up.鈥� I turned left up the footpath which led in the direction of our house. At the top of our street something had to happen. So I said an inward prayer and heard, 鈥淯se your life-saving movement to free you.鈥� Quickly I flung our two linked arms in the air and brought them down swiftly in a motion that loosened his grasp. A method to free yourself if you are trying to save someone from drowning, and they are hanging onto you by your wrists and pulling you under. Then I bolted the short distance to our front gate and almost fell into the porch. My mother, bearing the noise, came to the door and said 鈥淒arling, you鈥檙e out of breath. Have you been running?鈥� In the hall I gasped 鈥淵es鈥�. She was moving towards the kitchen and simply said, 鈥淒o you want some cocoa?鈥� They were never told of my narrow escape and after that the railway bridge lost it terror. I had met and overcome it!

My mother used to make us laugh when she sang in a high pitched voice an old hymn she had been taught in Sunday School as a child which ended, 鈥淵ou in your small corner and me in mine.鈥� In my small corner of the war I gained something in patience, courage, compassion and plenty of unselfishness. I had come to terms with fear and love anything that was good. So as a child and then as a teenager, the qualities I learnt were of great advantage in the process of growing up.

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