大象传媒

I was born, in the far South West of Cornwall on the 30th of August 1939.

My Father used to tease me by saying that when I was born it was the last straw for Hitler, and so we were at war just days later.

At the time that my Mother was going through a particularly difficult delivery, ( I have always been awkward!) my Father was busily occupied in the grounds of the Hospital creating a safe place to bury the radio-active elements used in the x-ray department.

When I did arrive, after a backwards struggle, which nearly cost my Mother her life, the first thing that my Mother saw on awakening from the anaesthetic was, a hill covered in Cornish heather, and hence my middle name, Heather.

The plan had been that if a girl, my Father would be allowed to choose the name, if a boy, my Mother would choose. It was a compromise, my first name being of my Father's choosing, and my middle one of my Mother's.

The fact that I have only ever been known by my middle name might show something of the family politics!

Being so young there are few really vivid recognitions of the war, but I can see so clearly, being held in my Mother's arms when very small, looking out from our garden and seeing a sky coloured brightly in orange and red, and hearing my Mother saying, "That's Plymouth dear, burning!"

Plymouth was at least 60 miles away from my home.

We also had Evacuees,a mother and child from the East End of London, who were most unhappy in our quiet street, missing the buzz of the City, and who thought we were soft, and "didn't know what the war was all about" because we weren't bombed directly.

Rationing features in my young memories also. We managed to get a couple of oranges, a wonderful treat, and our family dog, Toby, who loved them, stole one from me by taking the slices from the tray of my high-chair, and even from my mouth, but SO gently!

The end of the war was worse, as we re-located to Scotland, Glasgow in fact, with my Father's job. We were Sassenachs in an alien world, and as rationing tightened, my mother found it very difficult to get meat of any kind. The meat would, stragely, run out just as she got to the head of the queue.

I have never eaten so much fish , in fact I will never choose fish if there is a meat alternative to this day!

We Emigrated to Canada in 1951, again with my Father's firm, which made mining machinery, and travelled by ship from Southampton to Quebec on the RMS Scythia, a very elderly lady!

I had cold roast beef for breakfast, and lunch, hot roast beef in the evenings, for the whole crossing.

It was July 1951 and we hit one of the worst North Atlantic storms they had had for 20 years. For several days I was the only passenger to make the dining room, in the end with only one server.
Our cargo shifted and we developed a serious list, which slowed us down greatly, in the end we had to wave past all the cargo ships behind us in the St. Lawrence, as we crept to our berth in Quebec. (Quite humiliating for the Captain!)

I was surprised, as was my Mother to hear the Canadians complain that they had not been able to get their 20 pound bags of sugar for preserving. They considered that they had been RATIONED!

How the other half lived!