大象传媒

I was interested in the 大象传媒 wanting stories about experiences during WW2. My story is quite short because I was only two years old when the war started in 1939 and I was living just outside London in Woodford Green, Essex.

My parents decided that I should be evacuated down to Cornwall because of the bombing and because I was so young my mother had to go with me.

I was evacuated to a place called Lostwithiel and stayed on what seemed to me to be a huge farm! I seem to remember a very long train journey before we arrived.

The children who lived on this farm had a Nanny and I remember she told me off because I tried to wash the hair of one of the girls and obviously made a mess!!

I also remember a large staircase which went up both sides of the hall.

I also remember going to look at the pigs in the pig sty and being frightened because they walked towards me and my mother came rushing down the hill because I was screaming my head off!!

We didn't stay long, because my mother, being a Londoner, didn't like it in the country and my father's work took him to Birmingham where we moved to after leaving Cornwall. My father was not in the forces as he had been in the first world war and for some reason didn't have to serve in the second one as well, he was in his forties by then anyway. I was a late baby!!

I still remember the farm in Lostwithiel and still feel a sense of nostalgia when I see green hills and wide open spaces.

We returned to Woodford when the war ended, although I was late in returning because I was seriously ill in Birmingham Children's Hospital during that time and did not return to London until later in the year. Like many children at that time, I would not have been so ill if penicillin had been available but I was told that it was only available to the troops at that time.

Incidentally, having tried to escape the bombing in London, the bombs followed us to Birmingham and that, too, was badly hit during the war.

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