大象传媒

It was early 1939 we had been to a local store to pick up what we now know were gas masks, then to me they were horrible rubber smelling things, it took me ages to even put mine on. All the children at our school kept on having practise walks going with a knapsack on our back, (which my mother had made it was a horrible bright green), to the local railway station, it was to us a game but soon to become very serious.
It was September 1st. 1939 I was nearly nine when my brother and I walked in line with a lot of other children with the green packs on our back to Highbury station,Islington London taking our place in history to become evacuees. After saying goodbye to our mother we left London for Northampton.
This was my home for the next two years, living with four differant families, the first one did'nt want boys and got rid of us the next day,saying we both had fleas, the next one was very good to us for the next eighteen months,then I was moved due to my brother and I fighting all the time, I was moved to another lady who encouraged me to steal until the police caught me, there I did have fleas. Whilst there we got very heavy air raids from planes bombing Coventry and the women used to hit me to stay awake as she was frightened of the air raids, later I was moved to my last family who did not censor my letters so I was able to ask my mother to get me home, she was a very good lady and I enjoyed my stay with her.
So two years later at the age of eleven I arrived back in London, my parents had been bombed out so they were now living in Finchley, London.
There I joined the Boy Scouts and when I reached thirteen I was allowed to be a stretcher bearer at Finchley Memorial hospital, one night a week taking the place of porters as men were at war in the army, we would do all jobs looking after patients who had just had operations. We were also on standby waiting for air raid victims to come in by ambulance. We had to take people who had died to the morgue, I will always remember June 6th, the day we now know as D.Day, I had to move eight bodies, one from the ward but when we arrived at the morgue there were seven others already there, so we had to move them around to make room for our one, I think I heard every plane going to France that night as I could not get to sleep, now they would say I need counselling.
After I came off duty at 7.a.m. I had to do my paper round before going to school, sometimes if we had a bad night like June 6th very tired, I even had a greengocers round in the evenings after school
We also went to peoples house to erect morrison shelters for them, these were large iron tables with wire cages all around, so people could climb in underneath to sleep incase the house was bombed
I went to work when I was fourteen and the war ended when I was fifteen.
I am now nearly 73 and have always remembered that night and look back on those days with a little bit of pride knowing what I did helped.