大象传媒

I was 16 when war was declared and I was living in Bournemouth in Richmond Wood Road with my parents, I was actually born in Court Road, my father actually built our houses. In his youth, until he went into the Army in the First World War, he had been an Apprentice to a Builder in the town. Ater leaving the services in the First World War he got the chance to train as a teacher and then became a Wood Work Teacher although he still maintained an interest in building. He opened up the Wood Work Centre in what was Summerbee School, he was there for many years, he was there during the beginning of the war and helped with the evacuation of the children that were sent there, including people who went into the Bournemouth School for Boys. I was an only child and both my grandmothers were alive, I never knew my grandfathers. My mother had been a teacher in the early days, but she never went back to it.

When war was declared, I was at home listening to the radio. I was on holiday from Thomas Lee School, which was a boarding and day school for girls. I was going back to start the new term and was waiting at that time for my school certificate results which were delayed because of the outbreak of war.

When we returned back to school I then got my results. During the summer holidays they had been building air raid shelters at the school and consequently we use to have to practice going into the air raid shelters. We had to carry our gas masks everywhere with us. We were always checked to see that we had our mask as it was a serious matter. The boarders use to use the air raid shelters more than us as there were quite a lot of raids at night.

I remember there being a german girl boarder at our school and then one morning we realised she had gone, but nobody knew where she had gone and never heard about her again. Someone said these children may have gone to the Isle of Man, but whether that was so I do not know. We were all very upset that she had gone as she was our friend.

My father dug a hole in the back garden and put an Anderson shelter in. We used it once or twice, but it was a bit cold and damp and as it became obvious that Bournemouth wasn't a major target like Southampton or London we took a chance under the kitchen table.

There were sea mines, which were similar to land mines, which came over the town and one landed on Armor Road School, I was at home then. Aircraft apparently dropped the sea mines into the water, or meant to because of the shipping, but sometimes the wind took them in land before they landed on the sea and apparently the Air Raid Wardens watched them coming over the cliffs of Bournemouth and bouncing about and wondered where on earth in Bournemouth they were going to land. They were on parachutes. One dropped on Armor Road School at night time so luckily no children were there. Another one was dropped on a building which they had just finished building that week near Winton. I do remember being under the stairs at that time. The plaster casing came off the sea mine and clipped the edge of our roof and landed outside the back door. My father climbed over the debris of Armor Road school to reach my grandmother's house as she lived in Armor Road to see if she was alright, luckily she was okay. Almost opposite where my grandmother lived was a laundry and that was hit, it then became a bus depot. Luckily she wasn't hurt then either.

On occasions we were able to see a glow in the sky over Southampton when it was burning, but luckily we didn't have the same trouble here.

I remember seeing a dog fight in the sky, the sirens had gone off, it was over the cliffs at Westbourne and there is a site over there where an aircraft was shot down. My mother tried to get me in doors and didn't like me watching. We assumed it was the German plane that was shot down, but unfortunately it was a British plane at that particular time.

School life went on mainly as normal although we had St Anne's School for Girls from Southampton evacuated to us and used the buildings. To begin with the idea was that we worked in the morning and they worked in the afternoon and shared the school. That only lasted a week or two as they weren't a very big school and in the end I think we all functioned quite well. Although each school managed to be kept separate from one another. They were billeted around locally and Bournemouth School for Boys had a Taunton School from Southampton, Bournemouth School for Girls had Southampton School for Girls. The Latin Master and his wife from Taunton School were billeted to our household probably because my father was a teacher also. They stayed with us for quite a while and had to go back once or twice to check that their own house was okay. They then decided to rent a property in Bournemouth so they could carry on a normal life as far as possible. They rented Queensland Cottage. The Headmistress use to live there, but during the war she stayed in the main school building so she would be on duty in case of a night time air raid. They lived there until the end of the war when everybody went home. We became great friends with them.

My father wrote to tell me that Beales had been bombed but when I received the letter it had been stamped all over it and had been opened and the piece in the letter telling me that Beales had been bombed had been cut out. My father later told me when I returned home about Beales.

I was a trainee teacher from the age of 18 at a school in Torquay. I spent three years there. I was there from 1941 to 1944 in Torquay. A London girl's college had been evacuated to Torquay and that was were I did my teacher training in domestic science, needlework etc. My father said that as I was interested in that sort of thing that perhaps I should teach it as it was always something that was needed.

We stayed in two big hostels which were hotels originally run by one of the very top London firms, something like Harrods. These hotels were where their staff stayed if they wanted a holiday or if they were poorly. They were released during the war for the use of the college. We were two or three to a room, with a dining room etc.

We had to hand in our ration cards to the place where we were living as they needed them to buy us food etc. Then when we left for holiday etc we were given our ration books back.

We didn't actually wear a uniform they were mainly overalls. We had coupons for these overalls as you had to have several so you looked clean. It was hard to get material during the war.

There were no air raid shelters where we stayed, as this part of England wasn't classed as being at risk of bombing, similar to Bournemouth.

The nasty thing that happed to us though, was that one Sunday there was a tennis tournament in the gardens in Torquay layed on by the Red Cross and one or two of the well known tennis names were playing. A friend of mine and I went down to watch a game and just as the game had finished the sirens suddenly started to go off and we were walking back home. There was suddenly some air craft fire like machine guns and three planes swept the beach and loads of people were killed. We had to lie in the gutter for safety, fortunately we weren't touched. The Director of Education of Torquay was on the beach at that time and unfortunately he and his family were all killed. The school was closed for a week after for the funeral to take place and as a mark of respect and any of the students who were on teaching practice in Torquay went to the funeral representing the college. When we got near Babbacombe there had been some bombs dropped up in St Mary Church and most of the windows in our hostel were shattered. They put barbed wire up all along the beach and closed it off after that. The jetty wasn't hit, probably because it didn't stick out that much.

I remember one time that it was late one Saturday afternoon and I was cycling home from Talbot Heath near Bournemouth where I had played in a hockey match and the sirens went off. I wasn't sure whether to hide or carry on home to Richmond Wood Road. Then suddenly I looked up and saw a load of bombers going over, the sky was black with them, I later found out that they were heading for Coventry and came over in droves.

We didn't have much time for social life, as we had studying to do. At the training college they were very strict and wanted us to work hard. We were reserved occupation students and if we had failed or didn't work properly you were out and would have been sent to the Land Army or such like.

One girl in my year was sent to the Land Army. She accepted it as teaching didn't appeal to her.

We use to have term time off to go home, but otherwise we would stay till the end of term working hard. We travelled from Bournemouth West by train back and forth to Exeter and then on to Torquay. Sometimes the rail was disrupted, but not too bad.

I correspondend with my parents all through the war.

After my teacher training, around 1944, I got a job in Windsor, I couldn't get a job back in Bournemouth as I wasn't experienced enough. On my first day of teaching in Windsor the sirens went off nine times between 9am and 4pm. We went to the shelters and the children would run like anything as they were frightened as they had experienced the sound of the doodle-bugs, or flying bombs when they had been at home. I didn't do much teaching at that time. That was the end of the daylight raids as it happened. There had been quite a lot of bombing in Windsor but everyone got on with life the best way they could. Everything was rationed of course, and when teaching everything was basic cooking ingredients that you could get hold of. There was especially dried egg and you used one level tablespoon of dried egg powder with two tablespoons of water to reconstitute it. I didn't mind it that much.

My husband came from Somerset and lived on a farm and didn't realise there was a shortage of milk or eggs as they always had some. They helped the local communities.

My mother-in-law and father-in-law moved to Ringwood and during the war they had sold up. They brought the cats with them of course to Ringwood and the cats had always known that there was plenty of milk, but at Ringwood mother-in-law and father-in-law had had a ration of say about half a pint each a week and the cats had those and still wanted more.

When I was living in Windsor we would occasionally go to London for the day, as a couple of my friends came from London but we didn't do this too ofter as it wasn't safe.

There were a lot of troops in Windsor, Americans, Canadians, everyone. The Castle was guarded with soldiers wearing tin hats, you couldn't get near it at all. I don't recall the Royal Family being there at all, although things were very hush hush in those days.

There wasn't a lot going on in Windsor at the time as it was winter and there were blackouts of course and people were quite wary to venture out at all.

I was teaching one day and the Director of Education for Windsor at that time came cycling along on his bicycle to see me and he said, "Would you like to do some evening classes as people want to learn needlework", I said, "Yes," as it would mean more money, and of course I didn't stop to think that of course it would be in the blackout. It was to be in a convent. Well I thought it would be in a convent school. I found out from the landlady with whom I lived where it was. I cycled off in pitch darkness to go to this place and found the front door which was one of those on the pavement sort of front doors. A nun came and clanged the keys and it was not very pleasant there and she took me into this classroom and it was a remand home for girls who had been convicted of shoplifting etc. I just thought it was a convent school. These girls looked me up and down and made me feel very wary as I was looking quite smart in a white blouse with revere neck, ever so fashionable at that time, and all these girls were in these round very straight things and they all wanted to make a blouse like mine. I didn't have any material, they use to have to make nightdresses and that sort of thing by hand. There was no way I could interfere with what they were already making, only supervise them. They weren't very happy with that although they got use to it as I said I wasn't able to get any more material. When it was time for the end of the session, the nun came along to take me out and took me out in the blackout into their garden a totally different door from where I had gone in, so I had no idea where I was. They left me to it. The garden was surrounded by bushes and it was complete darkness. I did get out in the end obviously but I don't remember how, I thought I would never go there again, but I did up until the Christmas and then I said, "No thank you, I didn't want to work there anymore." The girls were okay with me, they had sinned, but they didn't deserve being in that place and they had to behave as they knew the nuns weren't very far away, although the nuns weren't in the room with me but of course the girls had to stay there anyway. No point in being difficult.

After working in Windsor for a short time Bournemouth changed their mind, as it worked out that it was cheaper to have a teacher from training college. So I did finally get back to Bournemouth.

My husband was in the RAF with Fleet Air Arm training on the flying boats. He was mainly based in Scotland, he was sometime in Pembroke Dock in Wales and also in Ireland for a very short time, but was mainly at sea. There were limited amounts of stations to take flying boats. He wasn't involved too much in the war as he was still training and then he was to be sent on embarkation leave for Japan as VJ day was announced so he never went fortunately. The flying boats were the most manouverable in the world.

When VE day came we were married and living in Ringwood with my in-laws. I had known my in-laws all my life as my husband was my second cousin. We must have found out about VE day from the radio. We walked from Ringwood to Bournemouth centre and everyone else was there and there were bells ringing all over. There were flags flying and doors open with people coming out with beer and all that. There was nothing really organised as no one knew when it was going to be.

My son was born on June 7th and VE day was on May 6th, so I just managed to get down to the square.

Just after my son was born I got a job as a domestic science teacher in Salisbury so had to travel everyday from Ringwood to Salisbury for two and a half years.

Then on VJ day we did the same thing only I was pushing the pram then. The celebration was about the same. There may have been more celebration after, although we didn't go to that.

When my husand came out of the RAF and we moved to Bournemouth my husband went into teacher training himself so I stayed at home then because it wasn't worth me teaching and paying someone else to look after our son. Eventually I got a job at Winton Girls School which eventually became Glenmore and I spent seventeen years there and finally left there and spent seventeen year at Somerbee, I hadn't moved very far.

One or two of my contemporaries at college unfortunately had lost their boyfriends, they were killed in the war, it was all going on around me but I was very very lucky that that didn't happen to me.

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