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1939 — Sept 1st Being only around 18 months old I don’t remember my first evacuation from Islington, London. We lived at the time Mum, Dad my elder sister and me in 2 rooms in Packington Street. It seemed prudent at the time to evacuate Mum, Margaret and me to escape the anticipated bombing of London and to leave my Dad there working. Cambridge seemed to be the place we were encouraged to go to and we ended up at a receiving centre in one of the colleges.
I think people came along there to select evacuees to be billeted in their homes.

There being three of us (Mum wouldn’t leave us or have us separated) I think it took a little while before any offer was made to take us in. Eventually a woman who’d been keeping an eye on our behaviour did suggest she could find room for us but this was about a fortnight into our evacuation and my mother suddenly decided that as London from the Radio news was apparently quiet and my Dad was still living at home there, we would return home to live as a family. She never discussed it with Dad, there were no telephones or anything then so he had the surprise of his life when he happened to be looking out of the window and saw us all struggling along back home with a pram and suitcase one evening.

1940 - Dad had by now been called up.

When the blitz started my mother took us to her Aunt Olive, her father’s sister, who lived alone, to live in a small cottage in Nantwich, Cheshire.
I can only recall on this occasion a walk from the station down what seemed like a very long lane to the house carrying whatever we could. I remember my Dad visiting us there on leave prior to going abroad; my aunt giving me a ride on her black bicycle; and screaming my head off when I couldn’t open the door of the outside loo.

We stayed there about 10 months and then returned to London. I think my great aunt was glad to have her home back.

1942/43 The following interval of years we spent in London. I remember gas masks being issued and drills taking place. I had a red Mickey Mouse one. They were awful to put on, very claustrophobic and smelled heavily of rubber. Whenever there was an air raid warning at night we used to grab our masks and a couple of blankets, turn off any gas lamps (we only had gas in the house, no electricity) and take an oil lamp down to the Anderson Shelter in the garden. We paused at the back door to look up into the night to see the search lights criss-crossing the sky sometimes taking in an aeroplane briefly and the AA fire.
Mr Hitler was volubly cursed and we proceeded into the shelter where we kids were given a makeshift bed on the bench seats and the adults sat around talking. We didn’t automatically go back into the house with the ‘all clear’, if we were sleeping we were not disturbed till early morning.

To make ends meet my mum took on a milk round. This meant pushing a heavy wooden cart laden with bottles around by hand. At around 4 years old I helped her by collecting the empties often with little notes inside while she delivered the full ones. Deliveries were for Phillips’ Dairy at the Essex Road end of Packington Street, a not insignificant hill to climb at the end of the round. She had to give this up in late 1943 when she became pregnant with my younger brother John.

Milk bottles in those days had a wide cardboard top on them with a push out hole in the top. To amuse ourselves we kids used to use a heavy needle to thread scraps of wool through the hole and around and around the cardboard disc, cut the wool around the perimeter when it would take no more, tie a piece of wool around the centre of the now flapping ends. Then cut away the disc and Hey Presto there was a fluffy ball.

I started school in 1943 at Hanover Street School in Islington.
We had a classroom overlooking the canal. From the balcony accessed by folding doors in the room we used to watch the laden barges go by pulled by horses on the towpath. I don’t recall what happened when there was an alarm during the day time though there must have been some shelter drills.

Even though there was a war on children were allowed to play in the streets from quite an early age.
At 5/6 years old I had freedom to play up to about 200 yards away as long as Mum knew roughly where I’d be which was usually around the Union Square area. There was a large warren of underground passages and benches under the square which acted as a Public Shelter. I was under strict instructions though to run straight home if there was a siren alarm and not to go any where else.

1944 With more intense German bombing and the start of the V1 doodlebugs it was decided that we should once more evacuate to Nantwich. I recall a little more this time and was aware of the presence of American troops around. We kids used to run after the troop carrying trucks shouting ‘Got any gum, chum?’ and were often thrown a packet.

The Americans back home in the U.S.A were also generous in sending ‘Food Parcels’ which contained a lot more than SPAM. There were also toys and small articles of clothing. It was like Christmas day opening the boxes up on the kitchen table.

I remember playing down by the river bank one day and finding several oval unopened tins of Herrings lying in the mud. I took them home proudly to Mum but she wouldn’t allow us to eat them despite my protestations that they were sealed in tin and couldn’t possibly be bad inside.

I went to school in Nantwich this time of course and was promoted from the bottom file of desks to the top file after telling the teacher on the first day that I was already on book 5 when she offered me book 2.
I did have one regret upon leaving this school. Friday afternoon was story time. The teacher read to us weekly from a book where a gang of children had a new adventure on each branch of a tree that they climbed onto on their way to the top. I’ve never known the name of the book but I would still like to find it to learn the end of the story.

We went back to London sometime in 1945 but I don’t know exactly when.

On the day it was announced that the war was over I said to my mother ‘Oh Good does that mean we can have some bananas next week?’ I’d never tasted one.

I don’t know how they managed to suddenly manufacture all those fireworks for the VE celebrations but my friend Terry who lived next door was given 6d to spend and bought some over at the bike shop, the place where we also went to recharge our accumulators for the ‘wireless’. He got 5 fireworks for this bright silver coin and we promptly went out of the shop, sat on the pavement and let them all off within as many minutes in broad daylight.

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