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My sister Sylvia and I lived with our parents in an upstairs flat in Twickenham. In December 1939 a new baby was born but when it was suspected that mum had TB, she took her baby away. My father worked nights in an ammunitions’ factory and we were left on our own at night. We had no Anderson shelter so when the sirens went we ran for shelter at the Turk’s Head, where we hid under the stairs in the cellar. When a bomb landed on the railway line at the back of our house, we were privately evacuated. A family friend paid for us to go to Seaton in Devon. I was placed with Mrs. Chatterton, who became auntie Grace. Sylvia was placed just up the road. I do not remember the journey to Seaton, but I remember waking up the next morning and seeing cows for the first time. The smells were so different from London. I felt I was waking up to freedom.

Auntie Grace lived in a small thatched cottage. It was very homely and I had a small loft room overlooking the farm. My job in the morning was to collect the milk. I ladled the milk from a small churn and then paid the farmer’s wife. I remember walking in the fields, skipping and playing with Auntie Grace’s grandchildren.

We attended the local school in a Victorian building with only one class of about forty children. We stayed for about a year, and only saw our parents once in that time. On that occasion we all went on the beach. A small opening had been cut in the defence wire and people were swimming in the sea. Our parents went to get a pot of tea and while they were away the sirens went because two German bombers came up the beach. They were so low we could see the pilots’ faces. Every one panicked and ran from the beach squeezing through the barbed wire. We could hear bombs being dropped inland. On the cliff top the guns were being manned ready to shoot at the planes when they returned. We were searching desperately for my mum. Meanwhile my mum was going hysterical because she could not find us. We ran round in all directions until we lost our bearings. Soon the planes returned. The guns on the cliff were firing at the planes and they replied with their machine guns spraying the people on the beach. .Mum was wearing a red blouse and in her panic she thought she thought it was blood and fainted. The planes got away and if there were any deaths or injuries it was kept very quiet. Mum and dad returned to London, and soon after we were told we were going back to London to live. I was very upset .I had loved being on the farm and milking the cows, and we were very happy at school. I would have liked to stay with auntie Grace, because we had made lots of friends in Seaton

We had returned to London because my mother was now better she wanted all her girls to be together. I returned to sharing a room with my two sisters. We went back to our old school which was full of children we didn’t know. My father continued to work nights and tried to sleep during the day. There were air raids daily and I remember being very scared. My uncle Eddie built a brick shelter. The first time we used it a bomb went off, blowing uncle Eddie inside the shelter, causing minor damage to him and the shelter. I never went in the shelter again. I preferred being under the table. If I was returning from school when the sirens went off I would knock on the nearest door and ask for shelter. Once I had to stay all night, sleeping on two chairs pushed together. Next morning I went home to collect my lunch and then went off to school.
When the doodle bugs came in1944 Sonia and I were evacuated by the government to Newport in Wales. Sonia was only four, I was twelve and Sylvia who was fourteen had started work. Two years later she joined the WRAF. In Newport we stayed with Mr and Mrs Percy Hughes. We lived above a bike shop. For the first time we mixed with the American Soldiers and they gave us chocolate and food and it was all great fun. We stayed there until the end of the war as both mum and dad were working nights. We always felt safe and loved. We loved the countryside, especially the clean air and the smell of the cows!. When we returned to Twickenham at the end of the war it took a long time to settle down. I never had a close relationship with my mother because we had been apart for so long. I started work in January 1946 and suddenly jumped into being an adult. All my memories of the war are good ones and I would have loved to return to both my adopted wartime families if I had been given the opportunity

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