大象传媒

A collection of memories from my wartime home before the SMUGGLERS .Gran was put in this remote cottage by my mother,after she had been bombed out in 17,Woolston Rd London se.Poor gran after being with us for a few months,and being all her life until 65 a Londoner,had to exist on 10 shillings a week,in a cottage with no electricity,no gas,only a rainwater tank and a well outside the back door and candles and oil lamps for light.All alone , looking back I dont know how my mother could have done it.Gran stayed nearly a year and then we moved in also ,as mother had let the show bungalow 1 Herbert Rd,on the nearby new estate.Dear Gran got her eldest son Charles Fyson,to take her, he couldnt give her a home as his wife had died,they had also been bombed out of his ironmongers shop.Ihad to walk furthur to North Lancing School,four winters along chalk lanes made slippery by frost,across fields collecting a bottle of milk on the way back.The chickens laid eggs we sold them in Steyning market,after cycling over the Downs ,with eggs ,especially precious Turkey hatching eggs,nestled in hay in the bike basket.Mother made me do an egg round on saturdays,she didnt come with me ,so a lot of people got eggs and didnt pay for ages,Iremember standing on the doorsteps,relaying the message ,they must pay,or not get anymore.They semmed to think giving me the peelings was enough.My schoolfriends were ok to me but few ventured over the fields to see me ,anyway I was doing chores mostof the time,like collecting firewood.Today Icould not live anywhere but in thecountryside.It sharpens one to the world around youto have a wartime experience like mine.rosemary

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