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1 Jean Cook’s Memories
At all schools in Croydon, on Friday, September 1st 1939, we were told by our class teachers, to report to school on Sunday 3rd to assemble in our classes. I was 11 years old and had heard the Prime Minister, Mr. Neville Chamberlain; announce on the radio, that we were at War with Germany. This meant, to me, that horrible bombs and fighting were going to happen. So when I reached school on that Sunday morning I was terribly frightened but tried not to show it to my parents who had gone with me. We were all given a white card with our names, addresses and school printed on in large letters, also a list of clothing to be packed in a small case or parcel, and told to be sure to carry our Gas Masks. These Masks had been given out some weeks before in our local Church halls with all the instructions on how to wear them and a practice sheet on how to use them. They were very uncomfortable and the babies had large ones to cover their prams. Before leaving the schools on the Sunday we were told to assemble at East Croydon Station on Monday 4th September with our entire luggage and to pack some small books, a favourite toy & just a change of clothes, nightwear and slippers. To come dressed in our School uniforms under a thick coat. Our uniforms then consisted of blazers, caps or hats, and stout black shoes or boots. As we left that Sunday, to return home, the Air Raid Sirens started to wail up and down, and everyone started to run to the Shelters which had been built in the parks, dug out from underground, and on the grass greens by the roads. This was as well as everyone having an Anderson shelter in their back gardens, made of corrugated steel half in the ground and grassed on top to camouflage them. Some people without gardens, had their stair cupboards reinforced or big metal steel table-shape shelters with steel mesh sides, put in their largest rooms downstairs. They were called Morrison shelters. The names came from the men who had designed them. This first Air Raid lasted about half an hour but was found to be a false alarm; the aircraft was one of our own, which had not been recognised at first.
On Monday the 4th September everyone assembled as told; at East Croydon train Station platforms at 9.00 am, all of us trembling and tearful. Our names were called from the registers and each class stepped into the carriages after hugging Mum, Dad and very young brothers and sisters, and trying not to cry. We didn't know when we would see them again and were already imagining all sorts of horrors happening here in Croydon. Some of us had very vivid imaginations, having listened to news coming from reports in Poland, of houses being bombed and people being killed. No-one spoke very much as we pulled out of the station waving from every window, not knowing where we were going. Of course our parents had been told we were being taken to Shoreham, near Brighton, but we did not know at the time. The journey was very quickly over as we did not stop at any stations; our train was labelled on the windows with our school names, so the station staff knew we would pass through. We arrived at Shoreham station and on to coaches waiting to take us to Upper Seeding village Hall where we met the families who had offered to take us into their homes. Some people took one child; others two and some took three, while we waited to be chosen we were all given sandwiches and lemonade before being taken to our foster homes. I learnt later that the government was paying an amount of money for each child, rather like the Child Benefit today. I remember very clearly the house I and a class mate were to stay in, there were two children and Mum and Dad. They lived in one of 12 houses in a row with a slip road in front, as we were on the main road out of Seeding. There were no back gardens with fences, all the gardens were dug with grass paths between, just like allotments, and had a concrete area at the back doors so everyone could walk anywhere. The neighbours were all very friendly and there were about eight of us billeted in the row. To get to school, which was only half day,(the local children had the school the other half of the day), we had to walk nearly 2 miles or cross a large field full of cows as a short cut. Naturally we took the short cut over the styles, running like mad past the cows, which we, as townies, were scared of, some thinking they were bulls! Just beside the school there was a row of bungalows and a very kind elderly couple used to wait for us to pass each day and give us juicy apples from their tree. In the afternoon class it was getting dark on the way home and there would be little bats flying so we were quite scared and this couple asked us if we would like to go in and meet their cat and dog, so we were taken in and shown round their home, I have loved bungalows ever since. We had alternative weeks of mornings and afternoons so that the other half of the day was used by both schools to take rambles, P.E. or games in the village hall.
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Most of our teachers were evacuated with us and they, too, were billeted with the village teachers, so we did not feel too strange. I remember being taken by coach, one morning, into Steyning, about 4 miles away, to see the cattle market where the cows and sheep were penned and sold. We took a packed lunch and eat outside the village Pub to eat and our teachers bought lemonade for us. That was all you could get then, as nearly everything was on ration, even sweets. Then we had to ramble back 4 miles passing through Bramber village on our way. We saw a very large tree in the front garden of the Vicarage there, which had apples and pears growing on it, they had been grafted together and we were amazed that this tree was real. On the opposite side of the road was a little museum of Oddities, which I remember well, clockwork trains running round a track in the centre, and glass cases of rats, mice, gerbils, hamsters and rabbits which were stuffed and dressed in little costumes. If we put an old penny in a slot on the cases, they moved! There were lots of musical boxes and stuffed birds in cages who sang if a penny was used in their slots. I used to write home every week telling Mum and Dad and my little brother Michael, what I had been doing, but I was very homesick sometimes after hearing the radio news at teatime, and would imagine all sorts of horrible things happening at home. In actual fact, the enemy aircraft did not get through the coastal defences until about April 1940 as the Anti aircraft guns along the East and South coasts were keeping them from getting inland, but we were too young to realize all this. Food was very plain and had to be carefully planned, we were all issued with our own Ration Books which our Foster Folk kept to help with the meals. We also had to carry our Identity Cards with us at all times. As winter 1939 approached we all wondered what would happen on that first Christmas, away from home. Just before Christmas, however, the Government announced that as there was so little evidence of danger, those parents who wished and could afford to, could have their children home for a week. We were all very lucky as we were only 40 miles from Croydon, other schools over the country were not so lucky. Many of us were put on the special train and were met at East Croydon station by our parents and spent that Christmas at home. Of course we had to have our Ration Books, Gas Masks and luggage with us. Some of the children did not return to Seeding after the holiday but I did, with that horrible feeling of fright. After I had returned to Seeding I had a letter from my Scholarship School where I should have gone in the September of last year. They were billeted at Brighton just along the coast, so I packed my little case, gas mask, ration book and identity card, said a tearful farewell to my foster parents and friends and was taken by bus accompanied by my teacher along the coast road to another family, where I stayed on my own. I felt terribly lonely and only knew a few girls at my new school, who had passed the same exam. It was very cold that winter of 1939/40, even the sea froze, there was ice floating on the waves. We had special double-deck buses to take us to school and saw a Swimming Club breaking the ice at the end of the pier to dive in, I still shiver to think of them. I was living in a big house with four floors, up on a hill above the town and school was still only half a day of course. I joined the family, who only had one daughter, a year younger than me at their Congregational Church and won a prize for an exam and full attendance record. I chose Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. I read a lot of books in those days so I was quite proud of myself. I did have cousin living in Brighton and was allowed to go to tea once a week with her, but had to take a small bag with a tiny piece of margarine, a little tiny pot of jam and a screw of sugar with me. Everyone had to do this if they went to a meal with relatives or friends, rations were so small no-one could spare their own for entertaining. Despite all this I was still very unhappy to be away from home and saved all the postal-orders my parents sent me, to collect enough for my ticket home on the Southdown Coaches, which travelled from London to Brighton and back stopping in West Croydon on the way. When I wrote home and told Mum and Dad I had saved the 7s.6d. (37p) for my fare home, they travelled down and collected me, for fear I would return on my own, which I had threatened to do.
In September 194O we were bombed, a direct hit on our house, but we were safe in the Anderson Shelter in the garden. We moved into a house nine doors along in the same road and slept in the front room, under a Morrison Shelter for the rest of the war.
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Pianos were pulled onto the pavements and we all had Sing-alongs, everyone was so relieved and happy but not forgetting all the men and women who had died fighting for our Victory, we had big Church services to remember them. Victory over Japan came later that year after the Hydrogen Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and was called V.J. Day, then America celebrated the complete end of World War II.

Blackout curtains - Windows were taped over the glass to stop shattering. Street lights out - Street names blacked out in case of invasion, torches and cycle lamps hooded - the few cars and lorries headlights hooded. Special constables were women - The ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½guard named Dad's Army who manned the anti aircraft guns and barrage balloons named Blimps. A.R.P. short for Air Raid Precautions & manned by men and women in reserved occupations as were Munitions Workers, certain office staff, council officers, civil servants and Conscientious Objectors, those people who did not believe in violence who had to report each week to the Council Office. Land Army Girls who helped on the farms. Cinemas still stayed open - Football was only amateur teams. Transport; buses, trains, tubes-times were cut and lots of women were drivers. Dear old Crystal Palace South Tower was blown up- it was too much a Landmark. We had Civic restaurants in the town where shop and office workers could have lunch at special prices. Allotments sprung up on every available spare plot of land - to help with vegetables which were not rationed.

Rations per family of 4 per week:

1 packet tea
1 tin of fruit every 2 weeks
1 rasher of bacon each
2 oz. butter each
4 oz. margarine each - -half lb. Lard per family per month.
1 egg each - llb. Flour " "
2 sausages each
very few cakes only plain sponge.
4oz. meat each
1 large loaf of bread per day per family.
1x 2lb. bag sugar per month per family
dried fruit scarce.
2 oz. jam each or 1 jar per 2 weeks
1 pint of milk each per day.
1 free bottle of concentrated orange juice for babies per week.
no chocolate or bananas at all
very few sweets - mostly boiled & jellies .

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