大象传媒

Background
We lived in the bungalow within the grounds of Granpa鈥檚 building and concrete works which was later to become the St John's Ambulance Station. With war brewing in Europe, Granpa excavated and built an air raid shelter under the windmill. It is still there to-day. For those willing to leave the Island, the evacuation of the islands was intended to be children with their schools first; women and children and dependent elderly next; and men last. The Island was invaded before most men were able to get away. About half the population chose to stay. The unreliable and intermittent arrival of evacuation ships which were being attacked trying to get to the Islands and again mid-channel when loaded with people caused great confusion. The news coming from Europe was bad and invasion was imminent. Every day parents parted with their children giving them first chance to get safely away from the island with their schools. Children were allowed just what they stood up in; a gas mask and one very small carry bag. Day after day, for a week, after spending all day at school waiting and with no ship or the ship that did come filled with others, the children returned home for the night and every morning a few more parents could n't bear the strain of the goodbyes and the unknown and kept children at home with them. That so many children did eventually make the U.K. with their schools says a great deal for the courage and sacrifice these parents made for their children; not knowing if they would get away themselves.
The Evacuation
I was about five and half years old at this time and attended the then Intermediate School for Girls, later to become the Girl's Grammar School. Eventually, in a check cotton dress, panama hat and blazer I boarded a ship in daylight which had to wait for darkness to depart. There were children stretched out over every inch of available floor space trying to get some sleep during the journey. I remember stepping over and around all these forms and searching the ship until I found the section where the Intermediate School for Boys were sleeping and found my cousin John (about 4 years older) and tucked down with him which unknown to me caused huge panic when a head count was done in my school section and I could n't be found. Memories of being bombed at anchor awaiting to get into a UK Port; Southampton I believe. Followed by another night in a cinema with black-out and an air raid taking place. And then a long exhausting train journey to Oldham and Rochdale.
Rochdale/Oldham. U.K.
My next recollection is spending several nights sleeping on root vegetables in horse boxes attached to a manor house. The whole country was in confusion. Communications were difficult. Telephones were uncommon. Radios a luxury and run on wet acid batteries which had to be charged every few hours. The locals having never heard of the Channel islands thought we would be black and I鈥檝e heard were not at firstvery willing to take us in. At that time there was n't a dark or black face in the country.
I remember the attempt at lessons. Girls of all ages together in one class. I remember the teachers who travelled with us doing everything from teaching, to washing to the weekly hair wash with black carbolic soap (for nits) when one after the other the girls fainted from the overpowering smell. I remember cold iron beds (and it was summer). I remember being in hospital with scarlet fever and feeling ill, lonely and frightened but I think this was because I was ill as I don't recall any other similarly desperate times whilst up North.
I recall a brief time living with an elderly couple who had a sweet shop. In the cellar were huge jars of sweets. I had been 'taken in' by them. During this time the rest of the clan had arrived in Exeter, which was granpa home city as he had won a singing scholarship to Exeter Cathedral school. It was many months before they managed to trace what had happened to our particular school. Rumours were that we had been sent to Canada. I remember my mother and Aunty Rene arriving in Rochdale and years later finding out that the kind couple wished to keep and adopt me. It speaks volumes of the uncertainty and desperation of the times that my mother actually seriously considered it in order to give me a better future.
Sometime later, I was put on a train South to Exeter on my own, with a label around my neck. The section of the train I was in finally arrived at Exeter after some 18 hours. The trains and railways were being bombed and the train had been unhitched broken up into sections and shunted into yards etc. My mother was frantic and later said the strain of the news that the train had been bombed and the long wait had turned her hair grey almost overnight.
Living Conditions Exeter, Devon.
In Exeter we began the gathering of the clan with people coming and going and our numbers in the house fluctuating almost weekly as everyone supported each other and gathered for news and stayed until they found accommodation for themselves.
By the time I arrived in Exeter, the family had rented a big three storey house in Exeter It was a Victorian house with bay windows and bells in themain rooms work rules regarding unattached and childless women came in to effect.
The five married sisters with their children (us) had one bedroom per family and Gran and Granpa had the dining room cum music room. Luckily there was a large but dark kitchen with a stove, a scullery and outhouses and a nice front lounge. One bathroom and separate toilet for the whole house on the first floor (luckily by our room) and an outside toilet next to the coal shed. Everyone had a chamber pot under the bed.
I remember life as generally being great fun. We were all together. We lived together, ate together (in relays) and played together.
The sisters, our parents, like everyone else, adopted 'the war time spirit' and would not show down heartedness or give in to adversity although they had plenty to cope with. They certainly protected us children from their worries.
To illustrate the shortages, I was still wearing the dress I had left Guernsey, probably 2 years later which had been let down and had 2" bands of material added to lengthen and let in and down the sides to make it fit. I remember being teased at school because I had a blazer c/w badge(until it was removed as that was seen as being ''posh)!
There was rationing with separate coupons each type of grocery; eggs, butter, flour etc and for sweets, shoes, clothes. These entitled each person to a few ounces per week of all basic food items. It was a very fair system although open to black market and barter and exchange. It was an endless battle to find enough food to put on the table but with hindsight and comparing with Guernsey and Europe, we were well fed. Often certain foods were not available, coupons or no coupons. It became a game of queuing to be sure to be there and buy whatever came in before the shop sold out. Luckily with so many children, we were continuously sent to stand in queues. Many times we just queued because other people were queuing, to see what was on offer.
I remember the great treat of buying a halfpence of gribbles from the Fish and Chip Shop. That's the little bits of batter that drain off the fish. That was the height of luxury. A halfpence would be a quarter of one of our new pennies to-day.
Supplies of food from USA and elsewhere were subject to continuous bombing.
I remember walking,probably at 9 years old, into the centre of town three Saturdays in a row awaiting peanut butter to arrive at Woolworth's. On the fourth Saturday I was early, before 9.a.m.and I had 6p's worth (3p now) spooned into a jam jar. That was the maximum allowed and was for all of us; So you can imagine the distress and tears when I dropped and smashed it running for the 'D' bus. This was a time when the situation did get everyone down and tears flowed all round. It was a dreadful loss.
Gradually life settled down in that we went to school; were inundated with East End children from the slums, many were smelly of unwashed bodies, nits ring worm and other infections seemed to abound from the close contact. The youngest of us made good friends with one East End boy which caused concern because home standards were so very different to ours, but the friendship persisted. There were big classes at school of between 30-40 pupils of widely varying stages of education and abilities.
I remember the Aunties trying to maintain discipline and standards of speech and manners, deportment and Sunday school. Pretty nigh impossible but they did succeed to a certain extent. The hand made Christmas decorations and presents. And later the attempt at elocution and music lessons. It is hard to appreciate now that our mothers were around 33 years of age when war broke out.
The survival of the family as a whole worked round a sharing of roles. One aunt went to work in a grocery shop; another nursed an elderly lady in her own home; another had a husband with her in munitions so helped keep house and another aunt with daughter had a husband in the Canadian army and my mother was the cook (on a tight budget and on coupons) to feed all of us. She became an expert at the things you could make with flour and water. There was so many of us, numbers fluctuated between 11 and 13, plus visitors, that the children ate first and the adults at the next sitting. We had soups and doughboys, pancakes, dropped scones, flap jacks, Yorkshire puddings by the load, suet puddings, jam sponge rolls, meal pastry rolls; - Anything that would fill hungry children. I remember two of us watching the slow eater of the family waiting to see if he would leave any food. He also used to stay in the toilet for ages with all the rest of us hopping up and down outside, saying "come on - Hurry Up" which he never did. Every Friday night we all had to queue up for our dose of Syrup of Figs! ' to keep healthy. They would be soaked for 24hrs before. I can still remember them with huge distaste.
The Americans
Canada joined Britain at the beginning of the War and the Americans joined much later. Once the U.S.A. agreed to join the Allied forces (not sure exactly when but I believe mid-war) the Atlantic became a total war zone with German submarines and air attacks attempting to stop the convoys carrying hundreds of thousands of troops, food, tanks and arms reaching the UK. and all that was needed for the war effort and to maintain their own troops.
Houses were requisitioned and American soldiers billeted with families. And, the black and white troops were segregated. In some cases with half-caste or mixed race soldiers the powers that be had difficulty deciding where they belonged and most experienced a hard time whether they were assigned to black or white billets. These were the first black faces most people in Britain had ever seen.
There was so much friction between the black and white troops that besides black military police for the blacks and white for the whites, they were also only allowed out on the town on alternate nights. There was much envy by the British troops in their not very glamourous heavy rough uniforms for the well tailored, fine material and gabardine uniforms of the USA forces.
This was a total culture shock. The Americans were generally young, loud, free and easy and lonely and away from home and when war news filtered back from Europe, understandably afraid. This was the opposite of the quiet, reserved, stiff upper lip British soldier of the time. The Americans brought luxuries with them, jazz, jive and nylons. I remember jitterbugging, although too young to take part. I think the motto of the American troops must have been "Let's live to-day for to-morrow we may die".
The Changes War Brought
Much, I was only dimly aware of at the time but managed to piece together in later years. The rapid emancipation of women due to their menfolk being away at war. They were required to fill all types of work which had traditionally been done only by men. Work in factories and ammunitions, the land, on buses and in shops and offices. Also for air raid duties and putting out fires. Freed from the old domestic routine; with the war time spirit everywhere; being needed and appreciated -- "Your Country needs You" and earning their own money for the first time was heady stuff for women, young and old. With thousands of footloose troops in every town and village and billeted in homes with families; it was exciting as well as threatening times. Mostly the war news was dilluted. That is, until the postman came with the dreaded government letter " We regret to inform you ---" I remember the Aunties watching the postman pass from the window to see which houses he delivered the dreaded letter to.
After the war, several things happened. Men returned shell shocked and traumatised. Prisoners of War returned. Men returned to find their womenfolk had experienced a different life and were reluctant to resume their previous role in the home. During the war they had developed confidence and freedom. After which, the clock never could be turned back. Women and men's daughters had had war time babies (as happens). Many of them half-caste which was considered shocking at the time. Women returned to USA with their newfound menfolk in droves.
Changing Fortunes of War
In the early days of the war everything seemed very black. There was enormous confusion. At first, the news of the war was dire. No communication or news from the husbands and family members who remained in the island. In fact, no communication until nearer the end of the war when some sparse Red Cross letters were exchanged with long time delays between each letter. I have some of those letters. The radio and news was listened to intently. Lord Haw Haw, who was claimed to be an Englishman but was actually born in America, would be heard with his propaganda on behalf of the Germans. Winston Churchill would be heard rallying the spirit of the country. The number of German planes, ships, submarines shot down or torpedoed was given daily for both sides. News of advances or defeats were announced but we now know they were doctored so as not to demoralise the people.
Songs became popular and were on the radio. "Hang Out Your Washing in the Seigfried Line" "Lilly Marlene" "Bless them all - the long and the short and the tall" and others. I've already forgotten many of them but when they were played at a Liberation anniversary parade, they all came flooding back.
I remember the huge effort our Mums made to try and make life normal. The time my mother stayed up all night fastening little bits of cotton wool to lengths of cotton to simulate snow and sticking them all over the lounge ceiling for Christmas Day. I remember that I could n't stop looking at it. The dolls my Mum made from old Lyle stockings and knitted clothes. The excitement at having a new pair of home knitted socks, 4 ply with double thick heels and an apple in your stocking. Sometimes a knitted jumper from other clothes that had been unpicked and re-knitted. I don't ever remember feeling deprived or poor or envious of things we could n't have. Well once, when my cotton dress showed all the let down rows of stitching.

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