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“I was evacuated twice. The first time was in 1939, aged 5, with my mum and brother. We were evacuated from Dagenham to Norfolk. The second time I was aged 10, and it was just me and my brother this time, we were sent to Paignton.

“The first time, the day we left, we had a very long walk to Ford’s (the motor car company) jetty, and we were put on a large steamer. The first night we were in Norfolk we had to sleep in a school on a sack filled with straw. It was very prickly. In the morning we went to a farmhouse where my mum, my brother and I had one room. Dad used to come and visit. He was in a Reserved Occupation — a stevedore. Eventually we returned to Dagenham.

“When we were back home, I remember walking along the street with dad, and a German plane was machine-gunning Parslow’s Avenue. Dad threw me to the ground underneath a privet hedge and lay on top of me. I felt safe because I was with my dad.

“We went to the Anderson shelter every night to save being woken up in the middle of the night. There was four of us and three from another family, I don’t know how we all got in.

When London was bombed very badly, about 40-41, I was in the back garden in Dagenham and there was a huge cloud of smoke and bits of black paper. ‘What’s that?’ I asked ‘Oh, someone’s got a bonny (bonfire)’ said my mum. But the next door neighbour said ‘Oh no Mrs Roberts, haven’t you heard, London’s on fire.’ We could smell the burning.

Us kids used to collect shrapnel although we were told not to. I remember lots of strips of paper, black one side and silver the other. They were dropped by Germans to fuzz up the radar.

The second time I was evacuated I was 10 years old in June 1944. I had to look after my 7 year old brother as my mum did not come with us this time. We went from London to Paignton by train. We were put in a large hall and the ladies came to choose which child they wanted. Most wanted girls because they thought they would be less trouble. I was picked but not my brother. I was very brave and said I wouldn’t leave my brother. So at the end of the day we had to be taken round the streets.

When we left the lady we stayed with she gave us a Bible and said ‘remember your auntie in the war’.

When we got home mum had put a big sheet up saying ‘welcome home’.

At the end of the war we had a street party. I dressed up as a nurse and went up to a pub to collect for it. A man said ‘ere give us your tin’ and it was passed around the whole pub. I got a pencil and notebook for collecting the most money. I always remember that pencil and notebook.

Rationing:
I used to mix up a teaspoon of sugar, dried milk and cocoa in a piece of newspaper, and wet my finger and dip it in, it was like chocolate.

Flour used to come in Hessian bags. I remember my gran saving all the bags, opening them out, washing and dying them, and sewing them all together to make curtains.�

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