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I was born in Dorking. Beds were being prepared for the forces coming from Dunkerque. May 1940. Mum put in the hospital kitchen, where I came along. Dad brought Mum’s twin brothers along but had no identification for them as it had been forgotten. On the way the bus was stopped for checks, but as he was in uniform he was allowed through to see us. (Identity card for Hilda). .

Mum ran a small general shop in Epsom, called The Cabin in Lower Court Road. (picture). Many of the boys from the forces were in the hospital nearby and Mum used to send them cigarettes. (letter of thanks). One chap, very badly wounded, came in for cigarettes but had no money,, so brought along some Victorian ‘bun’ pennies as security. We never saw him again and still have the pennies. I was very tiny at the time and remember sitting at the back of the shop helping Mum by threading food coupons onto a string to be sent off to the Ministry for checking. If an air raid warning went off Mum would take any children off the street and rush them to the air raid shelter at the back of the shop. This was general practice at the time.

Food rationing didn’t affect me much as it had always been there and seemed perfectly normal to me. But I remember a lady who used to come into the show and buy small amounts of rationed chocolate and then pick out the nuts and fruit and save them for her Christmas cake. Old traditions never die!

Dad was in the Navy, based at Lowestoft , a Petty Officer on mine sweepers, where everyone had a metal badge with a fish caught in a net. (picture) He seemed to be a lucky man as every time he came back from a mission, the next ship that went out got torpedoed. One of the ship was called the Buttermere, which took him to South Africa. In Greece he was amazed by the toughness of the population and the hardships they had to suffer. When he came home from Africa in 1945 I hid behind the door as he had a full beard and a very dark face and I didn’t recognise him. But I suppose this was quite a usual reaction so he understood.

Were were often looked after by my grandmother and I remember being rushed off to the shelter one day just as she was serving dinner, with our dinner plates full of food, and Gran ran back to the house as the raid was starting as she had forgotten the custard! She was very brave.

I remember being taught how to eat ‘tomaytoes’ by a Canadian cousin. We didn’t grow them so I hadn’t had much experience, so he sat me on the fender of his jeep and produced a tomato and showed me how to eat it like an apple! Bananas were also something I hadn’t experience, and once when Gran had queued for hours for our quota of one per child, I bit into the whole banana! I never tasted it as my uncles remembered how they tasted and were quite happy for me to hand over mine!

One day a Doodlebug landed in the fields beyond the hospital and nobody had seen one before so people were looking for a pilot all night, not realising that there wasn’t one!

One day Gran took me into Croydon shopping. It was a quiet day but a house had been bombed and I remember seeing a sailor picking through the rubble and finding a doll. That stayed with me , though I only saw it from the top of a bus.

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