蜜芽传媒

It was August 1939 and my mother鈥檚 cousin had offered the family the use of his tent, pitched at Shoeburyness, for a holiday. The holiday was enjoyable, apart from being disturbed by a large gun frequently being fired. This in turn panicked herds of horses in nearby fields. Dad said they were army horses being acclimatised to the sound of gunfire!

We returned home on the Saturday before war was declared to find Uncle Leslie and Aunt Edith waiting for us. They lived in Hersham and had come to offer their home as an evacuation haven for me and my sister.

Our first day at Hersham was the day that war was declared and soon after the declaration the air raid warning siren sounded. A policeman came frantically cycling along, ordering everyone off the street and so we all sat in a room with windows heavily taped and gas masks on our knees, not knowing what to expect. However the warning was a test and the 鈥渁ll clear鈥� sounded soon afterwards.

Life was good at Hersham but it was not to last. When Uncle Leslie went to register our whereabouts with the local council he was told that, due to the close proximity of an aircraft factory at Weybridge, Hersham was not considered to be in a safe zone and therefore we could not stay there.

We were moved to Farncombe in Surrey to join up with our school and were billeted with a butcher, his wife and their two daughters. They already had two evacuees from an orphanage at their home. The house was always cold, it was grossly overcrowded and the food, when we had any, was appalling. To make matters worse, husband and wife fought like cat and dog. As a butcher he kept a 12 bore shotgun in an unlocked cupboard and during their late night wars she would take the gun from the cupboard and whilst loading it scream that she would kill him. He always managed to wrest the gun from her but we were all terrified.

This living hell came to an abrupt end some weeks later when we were moved to a nearby house to live with Mr & Mrs 鈥淏鈥� and their two children Brian and Joyce. Apparently Mrs 鈥淏鈥� (Auntie Ella) had become concerned about our unhappiness and the deterioration in our physical condition. She had reported her concerns
but had been informed that no other vacancies existed. Although Auntie Ella only had a two bedroomed house she had insisted that we move into her home. Auntie Ella鈥檚 sister lived just across the road and when her husband鈥檚 army duties took him away from home my sister went to live there.

Mr 鈥淏鈥� (Uncle Cecil ) was a local baker鈥檚 roundsman and drove a horse-drawn van. He was also the senior hand in a fire crew that operated the local fire pump which was towed behind a car. If the air raid warning sounded whilst he was on his rounds, he would put the nosebag on the horse, tie the horse to a lamp-post, unhitch his bike from the side of the van and hurry to the pump station. It was a sign of those times that nothing was ever missing from his van when he returned.

Most of the evacuees staying in the area had lived in flats in London and had played in the 鈥榶ard鈥� or the street. This caused problems initially as we played our familiar street games. Mrs 鈥楳鈥�, a childless lady, was infuriated by this and would call the police nightly. The first night the local bobby arrived and said he had, had a complaint and had to record all our names. On every other occasion he would ask if the names were the same as the previous night. If we agreed he was grateful that he didn鈥檛 have to take a roll call. No action was ever taken against us although I can now see that 鈥� TIN CAN COPPER鈥� was quite disruptive to the peace of the neighbourhood.

As we became integrated into the community the problems faded away as we came to appreciate the countryside, the pleasures of playing in fields and woods and the freedom to roam. My love of the country and walking through it started here and has taken me to so many beautiful places that could only be reached on foot.

Although life was fairly tranquil, we were often made aware of the war as spent bullet cases descended from the night sky onto the roof from dogfights taking place above. We also witnessed daylight air attacks on a distant aircraft factory. The attacks often started with the shooting down of the barrage balloons that were raised to protect the factory. Each balloon hit would descend in a ball of flame.

Although we were happy we longed to see Mum and Dad. Unfortunately they couldn鈥檛 visit us because Mum was a District Leader in the W.V.S. and Dad an A.R.P. Deputy Post Warden and they were always on call.

There came a pause in the air raids and we persuaded our parents to let us visit them for a weekend and so on a Saturday morning along with many others we headed home. That weekend the air raids recommenced and as we were home we all spent the night in a shelter. This was a break from my parents usual routine because if we hadn鈥檛 been there they would have been on duty or sheltering in their flat ready to be summonsed.

During the bombing we heard a window break and someone commented that somebody鈥檚 window had gone. This was followed by a massive explosion as a parachute mine hit an adjacent block of flats. Somebody else commented that now everybody鈥檚 window had gone. The devastation that we saw in the morning was beyond belief and the sight of dead people being taken away was a real shock to me, being so young.

Our flat was on the top floor and we found that all of the windows had been blown in, room partition walls were partially demolished and an anti aircraft shell nose cone had come through the roof. The flat was totally destroyed and it was obvious that the family home would have to be relocated.

The effort to salvage as much as possible started straight away and led to the discovery of Dad鈥檚 missing bowler hat perched on the handle of his rolled umbrella which had penetrated the grass six storeys below.

Having us at home was now a problem and so once our return railway tickets were found, wrapped in a curtain that had been sucked up the chimney, Dad took us back to Auntie Ella鈥檚. It was the end of a very traumatic weekend but one which, when I look back, could have insured the safety of my parents.

Mum and Dad were soon rehoused in a requisitioned property close to the area they worked in as the Council could not spare them the time to go house-hunting themselves. We were now safely back in Farncombe and everything gradually settled down as the recent trauma was pushed into the background.

The problem now was schooling as there were insufficient school places due to the influx of evacuees. Church halls, function rooms in pubs and so on were hired for the purpose but were inadequately furnished for the task. Consequently little was learned.

As each location had room for just one class, we had to move from location to location depending on where the teacher for each subject was ensconced. By the time we reached our next destination it was nearly time to move on again particularly if we had, had to pass the shops in Goldalming High Street.

A change of system resulted in the classes staying put and the teachers moving between venues. This was no better as at the end of each session the teacher had to pack up their teaching aids and transport them to the next location. Having arrived they had to unpack and sort the aids/books out before they could start. The period of time between one tutor leaving and the other arriving could be very lively indeed. Looking back on this time I can say that from the age of nine until I started work aged 15 I had virtually no formal education.

The creativity we missed at school tended to surface away from it in the form of pranks that could be quite scary for the victims. One such prank entailed making a head and haunting?? sheet from some white material. To the head part was attached two luminous lapel buttons for eyes. A length of string was tied to the top of a lamp-post and laid across the road and then passed over a high school wall. The 鈥淕host鈥� was then attached to the string face down and we all sat on the school wall. When a cyclist with his compulsorily dimmed lights approached we would yank on the string and the effigy would soar into the air just ahead of the cyclist and we would watch the amazing speed some of our victims were suddenly able to propel their bikes.

These activities stopped when our small group joined the army cadet force that was based at charterhouse School in Goldalming. As the youngest of the group I was too young to enlist but by adding two years to my age I was accepted as a new recruit. I enjoyed the experience, particularly demonstrations of infantry weapons and explosives. But later I found carrying a rifle was a bit of a struggle!

News that units of the Canadian army were stationed not too far away caused an air of great excitement and expectancy among the young women. Suddenly, and in spite of clothes rationing, the young women were making great efforts with their appearances. In the absence of stockings, tea stained legs were everywhere with black lines being drawn down the back of the legs to simulate seams. The Canadians, like their American cousins, seemed to have a supply of nylon stockings they could give as gifts and so tea stained legs gradually diminished. Sadly for some young ladies, both single and married, the expectancy became as real as the nylon stockings!

The fascination of the River Wey, its wildlife and surroundings attracted me and I would often walk along the towpath to St. Catherine鈥檚 at Guildford. This was where the pilgrims crossed the river on their way to Canterbury. It was here that a punt with two Canadian soldiers paddling and two young ladies reclining was propelled towards the spot where I was standing on the gently shelving river bank. They all disembarked to a nearby teashop, asking me to look after the punt. On their return, and obviously out to impress the ladies, they gave me half a crown for my trouble. As they had pulled the punt onto the bank themselves and I only helped to push it back into the river I found that I had more money in my pocket than I had ever had before and all for doing nothing. This episode was repeated on other occasions with various sums being given depending on how hard the soldiers were trying to impress the ladies. This is the only time in my life I have received money for doing nothing!

Along the towpath route to Guildford was an area where people went swimming in the river. On one occasion a punt came into sight crewed as usual by two Canadian soldiers with ladies reclining and trailing their hands in the water. A wind up gramophone was on the flat front from which the sounds of 鈥淧arlez Moi d鈥檃mour鈥︹�� emitted. This was a very familiar song as it was often played to us as an example of French diction. The female occupants were soon recognised as Miss 鈥淐鈥� French teacher and Mrs 鈥淓鈥� History teacher. Recognising their teachers (??? Off page at bottom) leapt into the water with cries of 鈥済ood afternoon miss鈥� amid lots of splashing. The waves played havoc with the punt and the gramophone nearly went overboard. No-one ever reported seeing them on the river again and the French love song had turned into a comedy tune in our eyes.

The Canadians held their army wrestling championships at the Broadwater recreation ground in Farncombe. It was no holds barred all-in wrestling and bore no resemblance to what passes as wrestling on television today. Sparing the gory details, the injuries were horrendous and certainly justified the decision to have so many ambulances standing by.

The blitz was over and apart from occasional air raids things had quietened down. Although we were happy where we were, the pull of home was strong and so we returned. Being reunited was good for us all and was a real boost to my parents who really had been through so much, but as on our previous return to London things went awry once more.

During a sporadic enemy raid an unexploded bomb fell in the road outside our home. The whole area had to be evacuated and so we were all to be found at 2am heading towards my grandparents鈥� abode. It was a dazzlingly clear starlit night with meteorite showers appearing to trace the sky. As we neared the centre of Wandsworth however we saw that a depot of Tate & Lyle had been hit and the 鈥渕eteorites鈥� were in fact burning cartons of sugar soaring skywards and then bursting like fireworks.

My grandparents soon sorted out some sleeping arrangements and we all stayed there for four days, the unexploded bomb having been defused by then. My stay however was extended as in that short space of time the flying bomb (Doodlebug) cometh and my parents were back on twenty four hour call.

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