蜜芽传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Trish Hayes on behalf of the author Anne Stone, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Flo and George got married in June of 1944. It was a very pretty wedding and as usual Twybridge Way and mum had come up trumps with the catering. Aunts and uncles and cousins all came and a wedding during the war was such an uplift to people鈥檚 spirits. She was married at St. Michael鈥檚 Church, Stonebridge Park, as eventually six of the nip.e children would be. At around this time Aunt Lou had a son-in-law in the army who was stationed at Millborne in Dorset. He had managed to find a farm that would take us all for a holiday. As dad was still working on the railway he was allowed one free pass a year to take us on holiday. (It had to be free or we would never have been able to go). We went for a week and although the countryside was lovely I couldn鈥檛 wait to get home. 1944 arrived and the bombing of London resumed again. One very vivid memory I have is of a landmine which didn鈥檛
explode was dropped a few streets away. We children were in bed and the police came and told us we had to get out of the house in a few minutes. Mum got us up and grabbed our coats and shoes and a few immediate necessities and got them in the push chair. Accompanied by the budgie in his cage (also in the push chair), we set off in the middle of the night. We all walked round to a friend of dad鈥檚 and told them what had happened. Without hesitation they imediately said we could spend the night with them. They were an elderly couple but typical of the wonderful spirit Londoners at that time. They took the mattress off their bed for us three children. Mum and the man鈥檚 wife slept on the bed base and the two men sat in armchairs. However, this situation didn鈥檛 last long: we had just settled down when the police arrived again and once more we had to get out of the house. By now there were seven of us. Off we set to walk about a quarter of a mile to the underground shelters in the recreation ground. There was absolutely nowhere else
to go. The German bombers were out in force that night and as we walked along incendiary bombs were dropping all around us. Somehow we all made the shelters intact. Oh dear! what a terrible place it was. The whole area had been directed to the shelters, and there were about six hundred people all trying to find somewhere to sit down. There were a few wooden benches but they were already taken, so most people had to huddle together on the floor. There werejust two Elsan toilets for the whole lot. The whole place absolutely stank. I鈥檓 sure the Black Hole of Calcutta couldn鈥檛 have been worse. Unfortunately the authorities dealing with the landmine were having quite a struggle dismantling it and so we were forced to spend another two nights in that dreadful place without a wash or change of clothes. But, as usual, along with the odd grumble there was a good old sing song and people played cards or dominoes. A big cheer went up when we were eventually allowed back home.
I think it was in the summer of 1943 that dad managed to rent a houseboat at South Benfleet in Essex. Every weekend that could be managed mum, dad, George, Chris and I would get on the train and spend the weekends away. We weren鈥檛 allowed to actually be there at the time as it was considered too dangerous to be that near the coast during the war. So we all had to get off the train at Pitsea and walk a further two miles through the fields to Benfleet. Absolutely everything had to be carried by hand. Food, bedding, paraffin for the stove, along with spare clothing and toilet requisites. Heaven knows what we must have looked like trudging along with all that gear. People must have thought we were displaced personnel I should think. However, dad was in his element. Also it was quite an adventure for us children. I think the only person hard done by on these adventures was our poor mother. Every drop of water for drinking and cooking had to be carried in containers from about half a mile away. The little paraffin stove we had on board had to be used for cooking and heating and only one utensil could be put on the top at a time. It was such a slow process and even to make a cup of tea took nearly an hour. I remember one Sunday when the tide was right in, George was standing on the gangplank in his best Sunday clothes. He decided he was the world鈥檚 greatest jumper and was going to jump from the gangplank onto the river bank. True enough George jumped and SPLASH!! There he was, seven years old and no other clothes that he could put on until his own were dry. Mum spent the rest of the day frantically trying to dry his clothes while he ran around like Tarzan dressed only in a towel. It was a bit of a fraught day really, as we had to make the homeward trek back through the fields to Pitsea to catch a train home.

By this time, once again the bombing of London had taken a turn for the worse. It was back to the street shelters for us all. Most of the days, as well as the nights, had to be spent out there now. The Germans had developed pilotless rockets. We nicknamed them Doodlebugs. At first they were not too powerful but could cause quite a lot of damage to property. So once again people were being made homeless all around. Later on in the year, as technology improved, they started getting bigger and much more accurate. You could hear them whine overhead and suddenly stop when their fuel ran out. Many times I saw them drop from the sky in the near vicinity and then the noise of the explosion. We all thanked God we were spared yet again. It was now early in 1945 and coming to the end of my school days.
A got married in the early part of the year to Phyllis who was a widow with three children - two teenage girls and a seven year old boy. During my last term at school we were very short of teachers; as I was very good at my work I was chosen to teach the infants. It was quite a responsibility for a fourteen-year-old and I spent six weeks at teaching. However, I must admit I felt very proud of myself because despite missing six weeks of my own work I managed to leave school being top of the class. There was to be no further education for any of us. We had to get out and earn
as soon as it was possible. My first job was in music shop. I had to work 44 hours a week for the princely sum of one pound. My mother took fifteen shillings (75p) and a further four shillings (20p) went on bus fares. So I was left with a whole shilling (5p) to myself! I might just as well not have gone to work, for the only people to benefit were mum and dad

At around this time Fred (who was still in Burma and fighting the Japanese) was not fit enough to go into battle any more. Because of his previous experience at the London Palladium he was made stage manager for E.N.S.A. Imagine our surprise when one of the biggest stars in the world (Gracie Fields) turned up to entertain the troops. He was even more pleased because she recognised him instantly as the page boy she had had at the Palladium years before. She was a wonderfully generous lady and once more a signed photo of herself was promptly sent over to England for my father. The greatest event of my life so far was still to come, and I remember it as though it was yesterday. I had gone to the cinema (Odeon) at Craven Park with Marjorie Dickinson. Suddenly the film was switched off lights switched on. The manager walked onto the stage and announced 鈥淟adies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to you that the
war between Britain and Germany has just ended鈥�. Oh! what a wonderful time. Everybody cheered and ran around hugging and kissing everybody else. I don鈥檛 think anybody stopped to watch any more of the film. I had never seen such happiness. Marjorie and I left the cinema to walk home. Everybody in the street was dancing and cheering. It was absolutely fantastic. In the evening we got on the tube train and went to the West End, Oh, the sheer magic of it all.
The whole of London, I should think, turned up at Buckingham Palace. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth along with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose came out onto the balcony, accompanied by Winston Churchill. It was the first time I had seen the Royal Family. It was wonderful. Everybody sang and held hands and you just swept along with the tide. I don鈥檛 think anybody cared much where they ended up that night. I know Marjorie and I didn鈥檛 get home until the early hours of the morning. We must have just caught the last tube train home. I know mum was pretty cross
at our being so late, but she was so relieved to see us that I got away with the late night quite easily really. And the
date: May 8th, 1945. After the collapse of Germany there was still the war with Japan going on in the Far East. To be truthful it didn鈥檛 affect us in Europe anywhere near as much as the German occupation of countries. It was only a few weeks after this that an American bomber took off for Japan and dropped the most lethal weapon anybody had ever seen - the first atomic bomb. The city of Hiroshima was completely wiped out, along with 30,000 Japanese people. The devastation was absolutely horrendous. Only one more bomb was dropped on Japan after that and that brought about the absolute final end to World War II on 15th August, 1945. This was the signal for another Street party andanother trip out to the street for our faithful old piano. Food was still rationed and was to stay that way for a long time to come. This however did not deter all the mums in Twybridge Way - as usual they came up trumps and food and drink was in plentiful supply. Gradually the boys managed to get home to tumultuous welcomes. What stories they had to tell. Fred had been Al when he went in the army and due to jungle illnesses he was grade C3 when he came out. Tom had been with the Desert Rats and fought under General Montgomery all through Africa, Sicily and Italy. Apparently they had been torpedoed twice on the way out to Africa and fortunately were picked up by lifeboats, which was just as well because Tom couldn鈥檛 swim. He had fought a hard war as he was in one of the leading tanks across the desert. In spite of being blown up twice the only injury he sustained was a black eye after being hit by a piece of flying mud. Wilf had been through the atrocities of Arnhem trying to get the troops out who had been ambushed there. Charlie was the last home as he had been the last to go. Because of his poor eyesight he hadn鈥檛 actually been in the thick of the battles but was assigned to rebuilding pontoon bridges etc. How wonderful it was when they all came home. I have always thanked God for our own brothers were all spared to live their lives. I also remember the several cousins who were not so lucky. It was also a kind of unspoken agreement among the boys that they never really told us any of the dreadful parts of the fighting that they had been through. I suppose they all wanted to block out the bad memories.
And so the war years came to an end. As I lOok back I realise how lucky I was to have lived through those years. The bombing and devastation was dreadful but I learned valuable lessons in those early formative years to stand me in goodstead throughout life.

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