大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by CSV Storygatherer Lucy Thomas of Callington U3A on behalf of Patricia Ferguson. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

Part 2 OTHER MEMORIES OF MY MOTHER AND LIFE IN LONDON DURING DURING WW2
There were several things I remember in London during that time. We used to do Catholic processions around the streets, at times like Whit Sunday and May 1st for Our Lady. The priest would be in front and all the banners and everything else would be carried behind. I remember that in those days people took their hats off for a funeral to pass. This is something that has now totally disappeared. When I occasionally saw my mother, I remember her collecting scraps for the pigs. There was a big bin down the bottom of the road, which was a collection for the pigs. You would put stale bread, bits of potato peelings and ends of vegetables like cauliflower and bits of apples, all into the bin. I also saw horses pulling the beer drays and the milkman had a horse and cart on which were stacked bottles. The coalman had four horses pulling the coal cart.

Everything was grey then; there was no colour. There were no lights in the street and everything was drab. I remember that very well because I was a teenager before colour came back. I remember all the planes going over the top for the D Day landings; all night these planes went over and over and over. I remember Seeing Americans. My mother鈥檚 cousin who was in America asked all her relatives and their friends who were coming over to England to bring food parcels, and apparently she was virtually feeding all the neighbours with these food parcels that were being dropped in at all hours of the day or night. So she was popular in the road! I know she worked in this factory making big shells; she was a 鈥榮etter鈥�, and I know she was doing very hard work. She was bombed out three times apparently, and consequently lost a lot of the possessions that my father may have left. I鈥檝e very little left that was his.

On one occasion when my mother was bombed, she was upstairs and had a Morrison shelter under the table. When the bomb fell she must have passed out, because when she came to she tried to get downstairs, but there was no staircase, so she had virtually to climb down on the banister rail! Another time when she was bombed she was blown clean out of the house and landed in the road. She was totally black, even her white hair (which had changed colour after I was born)! A passing fireman or policeman found her and said, 鈥淎re you all right love?鈥� and she said, 鈥淲ell, I don鈥檛 know鈥�. 鈥淥h!鈥�, he said, 鈥淵ou are English 鈥� I didn鈥檛 know what colour you were!鈥� Another time she was in the cinema and a notice went up to say that there was a local bombing raid, and everybody rushed out. Our house was close to the Great West Road, which was a target due to the factories there. It was also near the hospital. My mother watched as the house was bombed, which was not a pretty sight, and then spent three months living in shelters in Isleworth until she found somewhere else to live.

I remember after the war, in London, notices on the bombsites that read 鈥淕entlemen at work鈥�! I also remember signs that said 鈥淣o Irish鈥�, and 鈥淣o Jews鈥�. In recent years I heard of a harmless middle-aged Jewish woman who was taken from her house during the war and taken to the Isle of Wight, where apparently many Jewish people were incarcerated.

I do remember, at the end of the war, that Winston Churchill visited the orphanage and gave an address, although I cannot remember what he said.

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