大象传媒

This story was submitted to the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by Wymondham Learning Centre on behalf of Grace Cullender and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was born in 1932 in Kentish Town, North London. My father was a window cleaner. In September 1939, when World War Two began, I was evacuated with my sister, who was eleven, to St. Albans, Hertfordshire. I vividly remember the journey, I had a suitcase, a label and a packet of egg sandwiches. The smell of egg sandwiches reminds me of that journey to this day. We were taken to a walled school playground and I still don鈥檛 know whether we were allocated to, or chosen by, the people who took us, but I do know that it was a condition that I went with my sister and we were not to be separated.
We went to the home of a master butcher and so we never went hungry and even after we went home I can鈥檛 remember that rationing made a big impact on me. I had older brothers and my father had been sent to work in a munitions factory so my mother had a lot of ration books and was a good cook.
The family I went to were never unkind to us but there was not a lot of affection. However, we were befriended by a very kind lady called Mrs. Notley who had a large garden with lots of apple trees and her house always smelt of apples. She taught us to knit and sew and, although life was harder as there were no machines to do the work, very few mothers went out to work and they seemed to have more time.
I think it must have been very hard for my mother to leave us with strangers but realise now that she had no option as my father and brothers all had to stay in Acton and needed her to look after them. When we went back to Acton I remember that my father grew marrows on top of the dugout air-raid shelter in the garden and that he was an A.R.P. warden.

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