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Marie's Memories of WW2

I was five years old in 1939 and lived with my parents in Shoreditch, London. The house was very old and had four storeys and a basement and in all there were ten rooms. We occupied the ground floor, and the basement, three other families lived on the upper floors. My mother worked full-time but early each morning took me to a child-minder who took me to school and looked after me after school until my mother came for me in the evening.

My father who was very deaf, had just begun working at the Gas Works in Battersea after being unemployed for two years. The job was shift-work and he often cycled the twelve miles to save the fare. He was a talented footballer and played for a local team and had been asked to try-out for a leading club but the impending war changed that.

When war was declared my father immediately volunteered for the Navy but was turned down, so he tried the Army and RAF and was very disappointed when they also rejected him. He stayed at his job which was a reserved occupation and later became a part-time fireman.

In late September, my mother and I along with three of my father’s sisters and their children were evacuated to Becccles, Norfolk. My mother and I were billeted in a large manor house while my aunts and cousins lived elsewhere. On our way back to our billet one day we took a short-cut across a field and then saw a bull coming after us. My mother shouted to me to start running and we raced across the field with the bull chasing us. I thought the bright red blouse mother was wearing had upset the bull. Country life didn’t suit my mother or my aunts and we returned to London very soon after this incident, having been in Norfolk just about two weeks. The lady we had been billeted with asked my mother if she could adopt me but my mother refused.

In 1940 (aged 6 years) I was evacuated from Maidstone Street School Haggerston, with my cousin Josie and her friend Gladys who were both about 12 years old. After a very long train journey we arrived at Bridgend, Wales and were billeted with a miner and his wife. They had two young children and lived in a small cottage, so with the addition of three more girls meant we were overcrowded and our living conditions were bad. The cottage was up a steep hill, and when we trudged up and down to school the local people came out and stared at us. I cannot remember anything about the school.

Josie and Gladys soon wrote to their mothers to tell them where we were and to say they were unhappy and wanted to go home. Josie’s mother arrived shortly after receiving the letter and took Josie and Gladys back to London but left me behind. She did see my mother and urged her to bring me home but it was a few more weeks before my mother came to see me.

Every day the miner’s wife filled a tin bath with hot water ready for her husband when he returned from the mine. The bath was in a corner of the kitchen and a curtain was pulled across to give him some privacy. My mother told me years later that the miner’s wife had said it was good luck to wash a miner’s back and suggested my mother did so. My mother declined the offer and said she would be taking me home the next day and asked if my clothes could be packed. The following day the miner’s wife said she had put all my clothes in a bucket of cold water to soak but promised to send them on to us, so we had to leave empty handed. The clothes never arrived!

During the time I was in London my mother took me to the ink factory where she worked as
a machine operater putting labels on the ink bottles. Whilst we were there the air-raid siren sounded and we hurried from the building. It was too late to find the nearest shelter so we huddled in a doorway and a bomb dropped near-by causing immense damage. My mother left me in the doorway and ran back into the factory and came out escorting a young woman who had been injured by flying glass. We took her to the nearest First Aid Post and made our way home. The road was closed to traffic so we had a long walk.

We went to stay with my mother’s sister Doris at Chingford and while we were there a bomb dropped near the swimming pool. We all hid under the dining table until the all clear went.

In the summer of 1940 I was sent to live with my Aunt Vi, my mother’s eldest sister who was living at Highams Park about two miles from Chingford. I went to Handsworth Avenue School and arrangements were made for me to be evacuated again.

Before going away I went back to see my parents for a short stay. My father called me one day to join him in the back yard and watch a dog-fight overhead pointing out which were our planes and which were Jerries. On another occasion father came rushing in shouting “The docks have been hit”. He wanted my mother to go up onto the roof and see the fires burning but she refused to go so he grabbed me by the hand and took me up the seven flights of stairs and on to the roof and we could see the fires burning in the distance.

A few days later I was evacuated to a village in Northants. Aunt Vi’s neice and nephew Barbara and Freddie were with me and I had been told to stay with them. On our arrival we were taken to a hall and given tea and the business of selection began. No one was prepared to take three children. Barbara and Freddie were taken by a woman who refused to take me as well.

Several times the organiser came to me and said that a nice lady would take me but each time I refused saying I had to be with Barbara and Freddie. It was getting late and the hall was being cleared and just two or three of us were left waiting.

The organizer came to me again and said I had to go with a nice lady just for the night and she would sort something out tomorrow. So crying and protesting very loudly the lady held my hand and took me to her home. Her name was Mrs Simms and she was embarrassed by all the noise I was making and told me to stop crying. It was a very quiet evening and I saw a few curtains moving as we hurried along the road.

Once in the house Mrs Simms asked me my name and where I was from. I remembered the letter my mother had placed in my coat pocket. Mrs Simms wrote a letter straight away to my mother telling her where I was. I didn’t hear from the organizer who had promised to help me and I didn’t see Barbara and Freddie again.

Mrs Simms had previously had two boys from London billeted with her but they had returned home and she had decided not to take any more. Then out of the blue an elderly widow had arrived and wanted a place to stay. She had come from London and was a friend of Mr Simms sisters and wanted to get away from the bombing. Mrs Simms took her in but was not expecting her to stay very long but Mrs Kitt had no intention of leaving. The two women thoroughly disliked one another.

My arrival did not please Mrs Kitt and she wasn’t very pleasant to me. She made some friends in the village and did eventually move out. My mother later told me that Mrs Simms had decided to keep me which would force Mrs Kitt to go!

The house was owned by the Council and had three bedrooms, a bathroom which was never used and a front room which was only used at Christmas. The kitchen was where the family spent their time. There was no electricity but gas lamps and a gas cooker. The toilet was outside in a brick built extension. Inside was a wooden plank with a hole cut out and a bucket underneath. This was emptied in a cess-pit at the end of the garden. All this was new to me as the house in London had electricity and a flush toilet.

Mrs Simms had been in Service to several wealthy families and had ended up as cook in her last employment and she spent much of her time cooking meals for the family making the rations go a long way. Mr Simms grew all the vegetables in the garden and on an allotment.

Mr and Mrs Simms had two daughters, Kath (aged 21) who was married to a soldier and Win (aged 16) and a son Les (aged 8). Mr Simms and the girls worked in Northampton and came home in the evenings.

Kath helped teach me to read and liked to sit me on her lap but Mrs Simms wouldn’t allow her to make a fuss of me. They taught me to sew and to knit socks and gloves using four steel needles and thick wool. I also cut newspaper into squares, made a hole in one corner and threaded string through the hole. This was hung up in the toilet!

On Sundays I wore my best clothes and wasn’t allowed to run or to play games. I went to Sunday School and then into Chapel before going home for lunch. We always started with Yorkshire pudding with gravy followed by roast meat and vegetables. Sometimes the Yorkshire pudding was cooked in the local baker’s oven. I prayed that I would get a crusty piece of the pudding and not the sloppy bit from the middle. After lunch I went to Sunday School again and in the evening back to Chapel. On some occasions we all went to the local Church Service which did confuse me.

My mother wrote to say she was coming to see me. The family asked me about her and wanted to know how old she was and I told them she was 62 years. Mrs Simms warned me that if I cried when mother went home, then she wouldn’t visit me again. My mother was a pretty young woman (26 years) and always fashionably dressed and she looked lovely when she arrived. After we had eaten lunch I sat on mother’s lap but Mrs Simms told me to get off because I would crease her dress. When it was time for her to leave I walked with mother to the bus stop and waved her good-bye and I managed not to cry.

From time to time I received a parcel from my parents and was very excited when one parcel contained five small bananas. I did get to eat one — the rest were shared with the family.

At school we were asked to collect rose hips from the wild roses what grew along the hedgerows and these were used to make rose-hip syrup. During haymaking time I went with my friend and we took jam sandwiches and a drink and sat in a corner of the field and watched the farm workers build the hayricks. In September we picked blackberries which were used for jam-making or bottled for future use. Early in the morning we went out and picked mushrooms from the fields.

Some of the men in the village joined the ĂŰŃż´«Ă˝ Guard, Mr Sims who had been a Sergeant in WW1 took charge of them when they went on
parade.

Mrs Simms liked to make jam but was having trouble getting sugar and asked my mother if she could get some. On my mother’s next visit she arrived carrying a very heavy suitcase full of bags of sugar which she had bought on the blackmarket. As she struggled to carry the case she had been offered help from Servicemen who carried the case for her. Mrs Simms made the jam but forgot to offer any to my mother.

I was sent to the local shop get the weeks rations and took the quickest route home which was across a field. As I was about to climb over a stile I was pushed from behind by a small boy and fell into a deep ditch which was full of muddy water still holding the bag of shopping. I scrambled out of the ditch and ran home in tears.

Mrs Simms opened the door to me and I gave her the bag with its soggy contents and did my best to explain what had happened. She was very upset that the food was ruined and sent me, still dripping wet, to go and tell the boy’s mother what he had done, before I could get dry and change my clothes. We had less food that week and I felt bad about that.

The Vicar’s daughter Daphne began a ballet class at the Rectory and I was able to join and really looked forward to my lessons, On May Day the grounds of the Rectory were opened to the public and we danced around the May Pole and put on a show.

Some of the girls in the class were entered for an exam run by the Royal School of allet and I was included. Daphne gave me a beautiful pair of ballet shoes for the occasion. I passed the exam but the village folk were not happy about it and it made me unpopular with the other girls. I wasn’t allowed to forget that I was just an evacuee. My lessons came to an end soon after when the Vicar and his family moved to another parish.

I didn’t see my mother for some time and never knew why. It was many years later that I learned that she had been injured in a air- raid. On a visit to my grandparents house the air-raid siren went and the family rushed to the Anderson shelter in the garden but prevented my mother from joining them saying there wasn’t enough room for her, so she went to the shelter in their neighbours garden.

The shelter where my father’s family had gone into, received a direct hit from a landmine and five members of the family were killed. The shelter my mother was in was badly damaged and my mother was buried for 48 hours before being rescued. She spent some time in hospital but made a full recovery.

My Grandfather, who was the worse for drink, had stayed in the house and was in bed during the raid. He was injured by a wardrobe falling on top of him which probably saved his life.

Kath got a telegram that her husband was missing in action and later on learned that he was a prisoner of war in Germany. So Kath and Mrs Simms saved their rations and sent parcels whenever they could containing items such as cocoa, dried egg, sugar, soap and socks.

The farmers were short of labourers and Kath got a job on a farm nearby and was soon driving a tractor and doing heavy work.

When German prisoners of war were brought to the village to work on the farm Kath found it hard to cope with and hated working with them. The village children liked to taunt them shouting “Hitler, no good”. which made some of the Germans angry.

The Germans were moved elsewhere and Italian prisoners of war came and took their place. They were friendly and cheerful but according to the farmers they didn’t work as hard as the
Germans had done.

In 1944 word went round the village that hundreds of soldiers were camped in a field next to the school so all of us kids went to see them. They gave us sweets and Army biscuits but left after a couple of days and didn’t come back.

When the war ended we hadn’t heard anything from my parents so Mrs Simms dictated a letter and I wrote to them asking when they were coming to take me home.

In June 1945 I went back to London. I had been away four years and nine months. Mrs Simms had offered to adopt me but my mother refused.

Being back with my parents was very strange and I was very lonely. My mother had changed her job and was working as a ticket collector on the Underground which was shift-work and my father was still at the Gas Works also doing shift-work. Sometimes I waited for my mum’s shift
to finish by sitting near the driver or guard on the Inner Circle going around it a couple of times until she was finished. I was sent to school for a few weeks but did little more than read books until the school closed at the end of the term.

A letter arrived to say I had passed the Eleven-plus exam which I had taken in Northampton.
I didn’t go to the girl’s Grammar School but instead went to a Central School which was nearer. There were 44 pupils in the class and discipline was strict with the cane being used for any boy misbehaving and “lines” for the girls. This was a very different world !

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