My interest in the Second World War is purely incidental. I lived through it and so it is of interest to me, as are all the other events of my life. I was interested to write about my evaccuation, because that was all so very personal, but I have no what one might call war-like memories, except that we were visiting an aunt in Tunbridge Wells when twelve doodle-bugs went over, and she pushed me under the bed! My family led a charmed life, really, as we were 'either too young or too old' to be involved in the fighting and we all came through unscathed.
I was born in Margate, Kent, in 1931. I had one sister, who was ten years older than I was. After the Second World War I attended Uttoxeter High School until I went to Teachers Training College. My first teaching post was in Sidcup, Kent, and then I taught in Battersea for a while. My chief memories of this time are involved with The Hammersmith Palais de Dance and the Kensington Town Hall. I was husband-hunting like mad!
Feeling the tropics might be more romantic I left for what was then called Rhodesia, where I taught in a tiny mining town called Gwanda, living in a boarding school. (Ugh!) I later moved to Bulawayo, where I found the living more to my taste. It was there I met my future husband.
All was not plain sailing, though. I heard that my sister was dying in England and I returned there. She eventually died and I faced a dilemma. My conscience told me that I should stay in the UK but I yearned for the sunshine. So I became a Childrens' Hostess on the Union Castle line and, for a couple of years I travelled backwards and forwards between the UK and Africa.
As luck would have, however, Malcolm, my husband, got a job in Capetown, and so we married and settled there. We have had two children, Rebecca and Greg. In the early 1970s we felt uneasy about the future of our children in Africa, and so we moved to Australia where we now, very happily, live.
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