大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War web site by a volunteer on behalf of Mrs. Iris Cudd and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was 5 or 6 at the beginning of the war and was living in Camberwell. I was evacuated to a huge mansion in its own grounds in Surrey. About 20 of us were all sent to this great house owned by an extremely precise lady and her daughter. After about a week, it was obvious that the 2 ladies were totally unable to cope with such a large number of evacuees so all but 2 were sent away. The only 2 evacuees left were myself and Paul a little boy who was much younger than I was.
I found it very difficult to get used to this way of life. I was the baby of the family, 10 years younger than my brother, and my parents spoilt me, for example, I was never allowed to get up in the morning before the fire was lit so that I would not catch cold.
At first, I attended the local school but then because I kept catching colds and the lady of the house was worried that I would infect Paul, I was taught at the house.
I was left handed, but was not allowed to use my left hand I was also made to wear a mask when I went to bed as Paul and I shared a bedroom and they were worried that I would give Paul a cold.
They cut off my long ringlets without asking my mother, and I had bells sewn on my slippers so that if I dared to swing my legs while sitting at the table, I would be found out!
I was very, very unhappy and used to beg my mother to be allowed to go home, but it was very dangerous at that time in London. My mother used to bring me parcels of food when she came to visit, but I was never given any of it.
As the war progressed, the lady and her daughter moved away from the mansion to another very large house in Churt, Lloyd George used to live next door and I can remember having tea with him.
After a while, my Mother took me away and I went to stay in Buckinghamshire with my Aunt who didn鈥檛 have any children. My Aunt didn鈥檛 like housework and didn鈥檛 even like me wearing my white ankle socks because of the washing involved!
My Uncle was a chef and when I left there to go back to my parents, I had become used to very sophisticated food like jugged hare and pheasant.
When I returned home although there were still air raids, we children still had quite a lot of freedom, we used to go to Brownies in the evening, and make our way back home armed with torches because there was no street lighting and the Blackout meant that there was no light showing from the houses. We used to buy a bag of chips from the chip shop and eat them on the way home.
In the park, there was a huge Barrage Balloon and I felt protected by it as it floated in the sky.
I remember there being a landmine about 5 or 10 minutes away from our house, and my Father going out to help the people: sometimes he brought people back to the house for tea if they had nowhere to go.
We used to go and see houses which had been bombed and pick the flowers in the gardens to take home. There didn鈥檛 seem to be any harm in this as there was no one living there anymore.

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