大象传媒

I was born three months before the start of World War Two, and my mother named me Rosemary - for remembrance she said, as my father, a regular soldier, had been sent out to Palestine in the 1938 emergency and she had no idea when or if he would return.
By the first Christmas of the war, the three of us, my mother, my older sister and myself, had removed from our home near the army barracks at Feltham to live with my grandparents in Chiswick, ostensibly so that my mother could have the support and help of her parents as both my sister and myself had been seriously ill with whooping cough; although in reality it was my mother who ended up providing all the help. We could not have made a worse move. The Phoney War of that winter was followed by the Battle of Britain in the summer and the London Blitz of the winter of 1940.
My very earliest memory is of a mad dash from the house, under the railway bridge and into an underground shelter. In my mind's eye I can see even now, my mother adn my aunt clinging to the handle of the big pram in which my sister and I were nested below a thick feather quilt and the attache case that held all the family certificates and insurance papers. The road was lined with trees set into the oblong paving stones, and the pram wheels bumped up and down the edges as they ran. My mother told me later that the air-raid warden had told them to keep under the trees as the enemy planes were straffing the railway lines. I couldn't have been more than 18 months old at the time of this incident and did not mention it to my mother until I was over thirty; whether she believed me or not I have no idea.
My next memory is of moving from my grandparents house a year later. It was a cold dark November day, and we had waited all day for the removal van to arrive. We got no further than the main road before the driver stopped - because they hadn't had anything to eat all day. Neither have we, was my mother's reply, but the only food she could get us was current buns from a nearby baker. As these were almost like gold-dust at that time, both my sister and I thought we were having an enormous treat, sitting in the back of the removal van on our old brown leatherette three-piece suite and eating current buns!
Our new home was in Hanworth - a two and a half bedroom semi-detached house with a fairly large back garden. Unfortunately the previous tenants had done a moonlight flit having locked themselves into the house and refusing to pay the rent or the bills. The grass was taller than i was and when it was eventually cut down inthe Spring, the garden was littered with empty tin cans and bottles that the previous tenants had thrown out of the upstairs windows.
My mother received an allotment of 拢2.10s.0d. per week from my father's pay [roughly equivalent to 拢75 in 2003] The rent for the house was 拢1 per week [I have the rent book to prove it}, so there was precious little left to keep the three of us. Our salvation was the garden and my mother's skill at growing anything. The wire fences down each side of the garden supported fruit bushes - blackberries, raspberries, logan berries, and red and black currants. The bottom fenc was corrugated iron and my mother planted her tomatoes in front of it, and despite dire predictions from the neighbours always had a wonderful crop. She also had a marrow patch at this end of the garden. In summer we lived off salds and in the winter there were root vegetables for stews. We were one of the few houses in the road which did not have chickens, but my sister and I always had boiled egg and soldiers for sunday tea, due to some judicious bartering 9on my mother's part. My sister and I always had our ownlittle patch of garden but whhilst hers, like my mother's blossomed with a multitude of plants, the only thing I was ever able to grow was radishes - I lacked their green thumbs.
My grandfather was a butcher in the town three miles away, so each weekend we would walk to his shop, and always managed to come home with a few scraps or 'bones for the dog'. The pram was an essential piece of equipment on these walks; it meant that my sister and I could ride when we were tired, it carried all our shopping, and was a repository for any scraps of wood that we found along the way. This last was essential as fuel was in short supply, as well as being expensive, so anything lying around was squirreled away with great glee. Our nights were generally spent in an air-raid shelter at the end of the road. At the first sound of the siren, we wouldleave the house carrying our blankets and pillows and settle down inthe metal bunk-beds to await the all-clear. There was a parrafin stove in the shelter, so the adults could boil a kettle and make tea. We often spent all night in that shelter.
Our garden backed onto a farm, and when we first moved in, there was an orchard beyond the corrugated iron fence; but then all the trees were cut down, the roots grubbed up and the whole orchard ploughed and planted with wheat. All the children gathered to watch the harvesting and as the central stand of grain became smaller and smaller, there was a flurry of small furry bodies as the rabbits who had been living amongst the corn-stalks abandoned their hiding place - an amazing sight for town-bred children.
My mother had a bad habit of leaving her house key behind when we went out. Fortunately, the fan-light window in the kitchen was seldom latched properly, so she would lift me uponto the window ledge and lower me through the window so I could climb down and open the back door. On one occasion, the window had been fastened, so the alternative was to push through the wire mesh cover on the larder window [which was no more than10 or 12 inches square]; then I had to crawl along the shelf past the jam and pickle jars, unlatch the door and jump down to the floor [about a 4 foot drop] before I could let my mother and sister into the house. i should perhaps point out that although I was the youngest child, I was by far the fattest, and to this day it puzzles me why I was the one who was elected to this job.
On St. Patrick's Day 1944, a black taxi drew up outside our house. Out stepped a tall man in khaki, and with his kitbag on his shoulder, he came up the path to the open front door. My father had come home. I'm ashamed to say, I took one look and ran to hide behind my mother. it was many years before my relationship with my father recovered from this initial blow. He was only home for a couple of weeks before returning to his unit to prepare for the great event of 1944 - the invasion of Normandy. he took part in the second and less recognised invasion fleet which carried all the transport, ammunition and replacement supplies which backed up the invading fleet. he did not return to us until after VE Day, which was marked in our three streets by a huge bonfire which left an indelible scar on the road for years afterwards, and a firework display - although where the latter came from no-one seemed to know!
My fifth birthday was a landmark as for the first time, i was going to have a party with a proper cake, jelly and tinned fruit. I don't know where my mother got all the ingredients, although I think my father's visit had something to do with it. By tea-time, the table was laid and we were all ready to start. Then the siren went and we all had to troop down to the shelter. The all-clear didn't sound until after midnight, and when we got home my mother was astounded when I sat down at the laden table. It's my party and I'm going to have my party I insisted. So we all sat round the table and feasted far into the night. Of course I was violently sick afterwards, but it was a small price to pay for my first real birthday party.
My mother loved the Radio and when indoors, we listened to all the programmes - Variety Bandbox, Worker's Playtime, ITMA, Much Binding in the Marsh, to name but a few. And we learned to dance with her - up and down the hall to the tunes of Henry Hall and Victor Sylvester. And wherever we were we sang - in the house, in the garden, in the shelter, in the street - walking went faster when we sang. It kept our spirits high, it kept us carefree and happy. What it cost my mother emotionally, I'll never know, but she gave us a safe and happy childhood, despite all the hard work, the scrimping and saving to make ends meet, the bombing and the long nights in the shelter. We sang our way through the war, and I've remembered those songs to this day - Run, rabbit run - We'll meet again - The white cliffs of Dover - and innumerable Music Hall ditties - these were the songs that shaped our childhood and kept us sane and safe for six long years.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.