大象传媒

I was 8 years old and living in Sandwich, Kent, when the war started on Sunday 3rd. September 1939. It was a lovely hot sunny day and Dad was in the back yard cementing, Mum was cooking the dinner (at this time she was 6 months pregnant with Rosemary) and Gladys and I were playing with Charlie, my brother, who was 18 months old. The radio was on and at 11 o'clock there was an announcement by Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, stating that our country was at war with Germany. A few minutes after this announcement the sirens sounded which were really frightening.

That same month four out of six London schools were requisitioned for other purposes and the majority of school children, pregnant mothers and the blind from London and the vacinity were evacuated to various, what were then considered safer, places. Many children under 11 came from Gillingham to Sandwich, Kent, where I lived and they took over our Junior School. This meant the school was very over-crowded so the children from Gillingham were very lucky and had the use of our school and we had to have our lessons in different places in the town. I can remember having to go from place to place with the class and we did a lot of walking. In January 1940 two-fifths of the evacuee children and nine-tenths of the mothers returned home as they were receiving very little schooling for some reason or another.

At this time in 1939 the cinemas and theatres were closed but opened for Christmas. The 大象传媒 closed all channels except the Home Service. Identity cards were issued and church bells stopped ringing. All houses had to have blackout curtains so all the housewives were busy sewing and making curtains. As my mother had been a dressmaker she had no problem there. Also glass window panes of houses had to be criss-crossed with tape or sealed to prevent the glass from shattering. We were issued with gas masks which were to be carried at all times. They were issued in little square cardboard boxes. The children under 5 had special coloured Mickey Mouse gas masks and babies had a special closed box like a carry-cot with a lid and a grey wrinkled hose-pipe with a pump that was meant to be worked by an adult. Rosemary, my sister, was a few months old when she had hers and I can remember her screaming and screaming and she would not go in it.

Some houses had Anderson Shelters built in their gardens - these were made from hooped sheets of corrugated steel, dug into the ground and covered in earth. They were cold and damp so many people had Morrison Shelters indoors instead, these were made of thick steel and looked like a table. We had one in the front room.

During the war we had a lot of Spam and Dried Eggs to eat. Nothing was wasted, all scraps of bread were put into a pudding and we ate this with watery custard or perhaps were given a square of pudding on returning home from school. Bread was not rationed during the War but it was rationed between 1946 and 1948. I remember the bread and dripping sandwiches, I did not like these very much but the sugar sandwiches went down well. I liked boiled stew and dumplings. The dumplings were made out of suet and any left over were served with sugar on them for "afters". Families could make a dinner out of very little with a few bacon scraps and slices of onion rolled into suet pastry, then wrapped up in a muslin cloth and boiled for a few hours. Split peas, suet, bread or potatoes were used to eke out an otherwise skimpy meal.

In 1940 when I was 9 and Gladys 11, the South East coast was vulnerable to invasion by Germany and most families were advised to leave their homes to go to the relative safety of the West. The men who were not in the Services were to stay in Sandwich. My mother was unable to leave as she had Charlie just over 2 years old and Rosemary 6 months but Gladys and I were evacuated with our next door neighbour, Mrs. Tims and her two daughters, Jean and Pat.

On this day, Sunday 2nd. June 1940, Mum and Dad took us to the railway station in the morning with our sandwiches and little brown cases. We had large labels pinned to our coats and carried gas masks. I remember taking my wool and needles so I could knit, my favourite pastime then! We had identity bracelets and I remember mine had on it DIRD 274.

We were very excited as if it was going to be a lovely holiday. Little did we know how long the journey would take and that we would be away from home for 5 years. Our parents must have been devastated not knowing where we were going and only having been told we were going to South Wales. All I can remember of that morning is being cheerful and smiling, bundled onto the steam train, waving goodbye and going through a very long dark tunnel (the Severn Tunnel.) The tunnel seemed never ending and we were all very frightened. We thought we would never see daylight again and clung to each other.

Gladys was billeted in Crofty for a few weeks but as she and her friend, Joyce Ford, had passed the scholarship they were taken to Caerleon, near Newport, Monmouthshire, where the Dover County Grammar School had been evacuated to.

Before leaving, Mum told us to stay together and not get separated. That was fine during the train journey but when we arrived in Swansea we spilled out on to the station platform and teachers herded us aboard buses which then headed for local school halls. I was still with Mrs. Tims, jean and Pat, travelling on the bus to the village of Upper Killay but there was no sign of Gladys. Of course I was very upset as she had been put on a different bus and ended up in a different village quite a long way from us. It was a long time before I found out where she was and one Saturday I had a surprise visit when Mrs. Burman, our Headmistress, brought Gladys in her car from Crofty to see me.

When we arrived at the Upper Killay local school late in the afternoon/evening, tired and hungry after our long train journey, we were given a bun and a drink and made to form a column. We did not have allocated foster families but were hand-selected on arrival. Inside the hall, a group of would-be billeters stood and stared at us tired, bedraggled arrivals standing in line for inspection. We were not an impressive group, all tired and far from home, some children crying. Eventually the locals stepped forward to choose the children they wanted and gave their names to the billeting officers. I was still with Mrs. Tims and her two children and she wanted us all to be billeted together, of course that really was impossible for one billeter to take on an adult and three children. It was decided that Mrs. Tims would take Pat, her eldest, with her and Jean (aged 7) would stay with me. Although I was not the first to be picked, I was not the last. Most people only wanted one child to look after and a lady came up to me and said, "What is your name?" I told her it was Lilian Bourner and she said, "I will have you." I didn't want to go by myself, I wanted Jean to come with me and I think I must have made a fuss as it was decided that she would take both of us after all. Having lost contact with my sister Gladys I didn't want to be separated from my best friend as well. Mrs. Tims and Pat were billeted about a quarter of a mile away from us in the same village.

I was one of the lucky evacuees as the lady who "chose" me (called Vera and aged about 21 at the time) lived with her mother and father and they all looked after me very well as one of the family. Jean didn't stay there very long as she was homesick and wanted to be with her mother and as Mrs. Tims and Pat were not very happy either, they all went back home and left me there alone. I can't remember being homesick but I suppose I must have been.

I can remember arriving at this house called "Hill Crest" which looked very big to me, possibly because I was only nine. Before one of the bedrooms was converted into a bathroom there was no indoor lavatory and it seemed a long walk to the end of the garden to use a bucket in a shed which I hated. The toilet paper consisted of pieces of newspaper cut very neatly into squares and was hung on a string nailed to the wall. There was a large garden where Mr. Jenkins grew all his own vegetables and fruit and he also reared chickens. Although the war was on I was very lucky to have lots of fresh food and eggs.

Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins seemed "very old" to me but they were probably only in their mid-forties. I called them Auntie and Uncle. Vera had a brother called Douglas, a few years younger than she was, he had been called up and was in the Air Force. I remember I always looked forward to him coming home on leave as he used to spoil me. Another member of the family was a black Scottie dog who used to spend most of his time under the sofa as he was quite old and one of my jobs on a Saturday morning was to go to Sketty, not far away, and buy the "lites" (dog meat) from the butcher for his meals.

Mrs. Jenkins had a sister living in Sketty and each Saturday afternoon we all visited for tea, a great treat with home made cakes. I also enjoyed Saturday evenings as we played board games with friends of the family. That is where I learned to play Monopoly and became quite good at it. Vera played the piano and she taught me a little and I was free to play whenever I wished.

Mr. Jenkins had relations and friends at a farm nearby - these were enjoyable visits and one day I was taiuht how to milk a cow by hand. Needless to say I wasn't very successful at that! There were no electric milking machines then.

Sundays were special days. Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins belonged to the Congregational Church. In the mornings I was sent off to Sunday School with my other school friends, just a short walk along the road to the church. I enjoyed the classes and there are still marked passages in my Bible that we studied. I have kept three books which were presented to me during my time in the village. Two were for collecting sums of money for various Church charities in 1940 and 1941 and the third one was given to me on leaving the village and returning home in 1942 to take the Scholarship before being evacuated again to Caerleon.

In the crowded school we mixed with Welsh children and had to learn the Welsh National Anthem and some Welsh words.

In February 1941 Swansea was badly bombed. During a very bad air raid we were all sleeping under the stairs and in the morning we found that a stray bomb had demolished a house nearby.

In June 1942 I returned home to take the Scholarship. After being in Wales for 2 years I was told I had a very broad Welsh accent and I was quite upset because Mum and Dad couldn't understand what I was saying. Our Junior School in Sandwich was still occupied by children from Gillingham so we were very cramped. The day came in September that year when all the "new girls" left Sandwich by train and off I went again to the Grammar School in Caerleon. I couldn't be billeted with Gladys as Mrs. Bowden already had two evacuees, Joyce Ford was there with Gladys. I was billeted with another girl called Pam Price, our "Auntie and Uncle" were Mr. and Mrs. Pattimore. I lived there for a few months and was then transferred to Mrs. Bowden with Gladys when Joyce left to go home. Again the schools were oercrowded in Caerleon and we had lessons all over the place walking from building to building which was very unsettling.

We were there until June 1945 after Victory in Europe (V.E. Day 8th. May 1945.) We had been away from home for five years, except for the few months I went home to take the Scholarship in Sandwich. I was then 14 and meeting Charlie and Rosemary again we seemed like strangers although they were my brother and sister.

Vera and I corresponded for some years after my return and on her marriage I was invited to her wedding in Upper Killay. I travelled the same journey I had some years previously and all the memories came flooding back.

As I came from a naval family, on my mother's side, I had always wanted to join the Women's Royal Naval Service so when I left College in 1949 I joined the WRNS (as it was called - they are now part of the Royal Navy.) I met my husband at Chatham, married in 1957 and we are still very happily married with two children and three grandchildren. For the last 39 years my husband, Keith, has been very involved with the Royal British Legion and last year he was awarded the M.B.E. for services to the R.B.L. in Devon.

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