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MY WAR By Margery Beadle age 78.

I was eleven when the war started, and had just passed the eleven plus exam to go to high school in Leytonstone, London. Of course the schools all closed, so I was at home getting under my mother’s feet each day.
Then the air raids started, and we had to run to the air raid shelter many times a day. When the ‘blitz’ became ‘hot’ we had to sleep in the shelter, and my mother, father, sister and Airedale dog all stayed in the shelter each night until it became unbearable.
My grandparents were bombed out and found a place in North Devon, on Exmoor, for us to go to with them.
My father was a London bus driver so he could not go with us. When we arrived at North Molton, Devon it was like heaven, all peaceful and calm, and we were taken into a cottage with a farmer.
The village was full of London evacuees all looking for lodgings. To us children it was fun as we had never known the country before. Sometimes the farmers would let us help round up the sheep and cows and we would kill ourselves laughing when the cows mooed!
After the blitz we came back to Hornchurch, not very far from the R.A.F aerodrome, where I used to see the spitfires and hurricanes take off and land, we used to see them go up in the air and count how many there were, and then count again when they got back. The successful ones would do a victory roll before they landed this was to show they had found their target. Near us was also the Elm Park hotel where they held dances and we would dance with the airmen!
We never forgot our friends in the country and went on several holidays there. We used to take the 10.30am train from Paddington to Taunton, then change on to the North Devon line to South Molton. Sometimes the Exmoor looked like a massive carpet of purple heather.
After settling back home, a year or so passed by and I became 13yrs old, going on 14. When I became 14 yrs I took a job at F.W. Woolworth’s at Elm Park. I never had any more schooling. 3 years later the war ended but our lives were never the same.
14/07/05

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