大象传媒

It was the 3rd September 1939, the first day of the war, I was 20, in south London, on a Sunday morning and my father and I was in the back garden digging a hole for the Anderson shelter which had been delivered earlier, supplied by the government, when the air-raid siren sounded. It was only about 10 minutes after the Prime Minister had announced, 鈥淲e are now at war with Germany鈥�, on the radio. My young sister Margaret, aged 10, had been sent to the local factory to buy cream for Sunday鈥檚 dessert. So panic, Margaret is missing. The all-clear sounded very quickly, it was only a practice I think and Margaret was found at a neighbours complete with ear-plugs and the cream.

Once a year relatives in Australia would send us a whole sheep which the local butcher jointed for us so all the family could share it.

I was working at a tin box factory, for the first few months there was nothing, things went on as usual then when the bombs started and the Anderson shelter got used and whenever I smell wintergreen (linament) I am reminded of an aunt who rubbed it on her chest and it permeated the Anderson shelter.

During this time there wasn鈥檛 much by way of entertainment but luckily keep-fit classes continued but had to be in the basement of the local church. The exercises were done to the beat of a piano. Here their billiard tables were covered over with white sheets which gave you the shivers when you walked in!

I joined the first aid course at the factory, the only equipment I had was a water bottle. So when an air-raid warning sounded during the day everyone went down to the basement for safety. When I look back, that basement was full of sheet tin hanging from the rafters and if a bomb had fallen anywhere near we would have been cut to ribbons.

Then one morning reaching the factory it had been hit by a landmine in the night and it was carved in half. One half had disappeared and the machine I was working on was hanging on the edge. This made up my mind and I volunteered for war work and was sent to the borough polytechnic to brush up on maths. I ended up at Hayward鈥檚 factory in Union Street which were making ventilators and Bailey bridges. Again I was in the first aid section where I met my husband to be, he was working in the factory as well. He was in a reserved occupation, he was an engineer. I as waiting at the tram stop to go home and Robert came up to me and I said, '鈥楬ello, where are you going?鈥� and he said he was seeing me home, really was romantic. In 1943 my sister and I had a double wedding. She was in the army and so was her fiance so everything we wore was borrowed, the lot. My mother was not very pleased when we told her about the wedding, she said she wanted nothing to do with it, but as the time drew near she revealed she had been saving coupons to be able to give us a wedding breakfast and it was very nice. After we got married we had a honeymoon in Devon, travelling by train, no problem. We had obtained a flat in Battersea right near Battersea Park, it was very nice. We didn鈥檛 have an Anderson shelter but a Morrison shelter in the middle of the road. The air raids continued and being close to the Thames the bombers came from the coast along the Thames into central London and any bombs not dropped on the capital was dropped along the Thames as they went home. After one air-raid went back indoors and the whole of the window frame had been blown into the room, that was the nearest I came to any trouble.

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