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I was 8 years old when war was declared, and thought that ‘being at war’ meant I would fight other 8 year old and Mum another Mum etc etc throughout the family. Very soon found out it wasn’t like that at all. We were living in a block of flats at 407 Manor Road, E16, London, on the second floor at that time. Our parents decided we should be evacuated to somewhere safe, so with my older brother and sisters we were collected in the school hall (Pretoria Road School) and were given a bag with biscuits in it. We all had gas-masks in a cardboard box and had labels tied on us. We went on a train and arrived at Adderbury in Oxfordshire, and were all put in a hall. Lots of people came and chose children, but as our Mum had said to us we were not to be separated we were the last to be chosen. This lady came and said she would take us. We all went outside the hall, and there was this car with a chauffeur we all got in, and then we arrived at this house and a maid opened the door (very posh).

We had a bath and supper and were put into bed. I was in a bedroom with my sisters and all had separate beds. We had always slept together in one big bed, me in the middle because I was the youngest. My poor brother was put up in the attic with two doors between us. He didn’t like it, he thought he could see people looking at him through the skylight. During the night we were very hungry so my sisters went downstairs to get us our biscuits to eat. But in the morning they were in trouble as we weren’t supposed to have taken them. We were very hungry the whole time we were there. This lady always used to kiss me ‘goodnight’ — but I didn’t want her, I wanted my Mum.

I remember an old bike in the garage and the chauffer said we could use it. My sisters used to have me and then my brother take turns on the crossbar up and down the lane, but the lady stopped us using it as she thought it was too dangerous. There was a farm opposite and the used to let us play on the haystack. It was good fun sliding down, and the farmer’s wife used to give us milk to drink straight from the cows — it was delicious.

Meanwhile, my mum and younger brother Jimmy were evacuated to Banbury which was about 16 miles away. Our lady had a room set aside as a chapel and we had to go there every day. She bought us all new clothes. We were still very hungry so we used to go into the orchard at the back of the house for fruit, and once we put a lot of cob nuts up our knickers. We picked them and my sisters gave some to my brother in the attic. In the morning we were found out, and were really in trouble because there were earwigs and bits all on the floor from the nuts. Also staying in the house were a headmistress and a teacher. We all used to eat together at the same table, but whilst we had bread at our end of the table, they all had salmon. We were fed up and just wanted our Mum.

We had been there about 3 weeks when one Sunday we were supposed to go to church and so went to the village green and decided we wouldn’t go. So we sat on a bench and looked down the road, and coming along was the biggest lorry and it was really puffing up the hill toward us. And then it stopped and a door opened and it was our Mum. But the lorry was really high and the driver helped Mum down the high step. We were all crying and Mum said ‘I’ve come to take you home’. So we all walked back to the house and my Mum told the lady. She said ‘you can’t take them, they’re my foster children’, and Mum said ‘they are mine in flesh and blood’. Anyway, the lady wouldn’t let us get our clothes or anything and we just came away. We didn’t care though, we were with Mum.

So we had to walk 16 miles to the farm my Mum was staying at. On the way we passed a Vicar who tried to persuade Mum to leave us in the countryside but she said if we were meant to go, we’d all go together. Eventually we arrived at the farm very tired and hungry. The farmer’s wife had lots of food for us to eat, there was the most enormous ham with loads of mashed potatoes, and after a good night’s sleep we went home.

Just after we had been evacuated, my Dad didn’t like being on his own and went out one night and got drunk leaving all the lights on in the flat, so was put in gaol for the night.

In 1940 we moved from the flat to a house in Fowler Road, from where Hetty and I were evacuated again, this time to Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire. She was a nice lady and had two daughters. I didn’t mind actually, I was spoilt. Never been spoilt before. Hetty wasn’t happy though and when Mum sent us a shilling postal order, Hetty wouldn’t let me have any, she was saving up to go home. The lady used to cook lovely fish and chips. From our bedroom window we could see the white horse. Bradford on Avon is built on a hill with a river at the bottom. The lady had two daughters; the eldest was married and lived up the hill in a house with green slates. We used to go to a round house for some lessons.

Hetty saved enough money for us to go home. I remember being at Victoria station when the siren went off and running for the shelter. A bag of plums that my sister had so carefully carried all the way back form Wiltshire fell on the floor and rolled under a coach, so we had to leave them. Mum and Joe were there to meet us and Mum told us off for coming home on our own, but was so pleased we were back home and all together again. So we remained and spent the rest of the war in London all through the Blitz and Battle of Britain.

Shortly after that we moved over the road to another house in Eric Road, Forest Gate. This had a railway at the back. It had a shelter in the garden but it was full of water so we had a reinforced table (Morrison) in the living room and this was where we all used to sleep. The raids started to get bad. But Dad at this time was doing firefighting and bomb disposal, one night on and on night off in the City.

On one particular night (Wednesday 20th March 1941) dad was home - I had been out playing with my friend Joyce (next-door-but 1 ) and who was the same age as me when the siren went. Joyce had a pair of skates and always shared them with me so we had one each. We ran in to our own homes, and we got under our table. Joyce had gone back to her house. There were bombs dropping and the noise of the guns — it was terrifying. There were also lots of incendiary bombs. Everyone used to keep their doors open to allow the blast to travel through and for anyone passing-by to take shelter. Dad was running through from back to front with a bucket of sand and shovel for putting out fires. He was at the back had apparently jumped two garden fences to put out an incendiary bomb in my friends garden. Her older brother was out there going to throw a bucket of water over it - wrong thing to do. Dad shoved him out of the way with the shovel so saving his life then, and then he ran through their house to see the rest of the family in the corner. Dad told the family to get out as it was the railway they were after which ran along the back.

Meanwhile, while Dad was in their home, a small bomb had fallen at the back of our house and it was awful. Mum, thinking Dad was still in the garden, called out for him but there was no answer. She said ‘kids, your Dad’s gone’. The walls and ceilings were down on top of the table - the noise was horrendous; my brother had a window frame around his neck. And then my Dad came back in through the front, the door was on the floor in the passage, and he said ‘come on, we’re getting out’.

So along with the tin box (important papers box), my dad holding mine and my little brothers hands, we ran but were blown along by a bomb blast (down Clare Road). When we reached the First Aid post which was at the school that we went to (Odessa Road School) I remember my arms were covered with blood caused by flying glass splinters (I still have the marks).
Later we heard that a high-explosive bomb had destroyed our whole street practically, and we were the only family to get out. I remember going round there the next day with Dad, Hetty and Joe, it was all just rubble. They were digging for us. But I shall always remember my friend Joyce and her family lying covered in the gutter, all dead. I saw her shoes.

We stayed in the school for a month before they put us in the basement of a big house in MacDonald Road sleeping on Army cots and blankets. We had nothing but what we wore until parcels arrived from the USA. We were there for a short while then we were put in a house in Odessa Road with a cemetery at the back of the garden, the air-raid shelter just a foot from the wall and I was scared I would have to go in it. But that too was full of water, so we had another Morrison table.

After raids, we would go round collecting shrapnel. Also we would watch the dog-fights and cheer when one of theirs was shot down. The raids eased for while and we were allowed to sleep back upstairs. I remember being in bed with Hetty and there was an awful noise and the bedroom filled with red light. A burning plane was overhead and came down a short way away.

The seven of us were moved from that house to a 2-up 2-down at 69 Tower Hamlets Road (where I lived until I married).

My Dad joined the Navy again (he had been an underage sailor in WW1) and eventually went to France as Chief Petty Officer attached to the Americans at Omaha beach, and then to Rouen and Le-Havre where he made friends with some people who were with the underground movement.

Meanwhile back home the raids had started again this time the shelter was fine. So we used to go down there. It had bunk-beds in it and Mum used to keep drink and food ready. The back of the garden had boards up now because the houses at the back (above) had been bombed, and one day I came home from school and went out to the loo when I came out there was an Italian POW walking up the garden path. There was a big POW camp at Wanstead flats watched over by the army and the POW’s were used to clear rubble away. I screamed and ran out of the house into my Mum’s friend’s house. At about this time another of Mum’s friend’s house got hit and her husband was found still sitting on the loo. They were just one street away.

One Friday morning (28th July 1944) my brother Jimmy and I were at home and my two sisters and Joe were at work. Mum had gone to get some vegetables from the nearby shop. Mum had saved up meat rations and done loads of little new potatoes, we were gong to have a meat pie - a real treat. The siren went so my brother and I went down the shelter, leaving the front door open for Mum. She had just got home and into the shelter when there was the most terrifying noise and shaking. When we finally opened the shelter door you couldn’t see anything for brick dust, we thought our house must have gone. When we eventually could see, half the roof had gone as had the doors and windows.

The kitchen and living-room walls were down. A flying bomb had dropped on the Forest Lane end of the road and half the road was gone. My friend’s mother (Mrs. D) had been killed, along with many others. When Mary, Hetty and Joe came home from work the police wouldn’t let them through at first, not until they had said they lived there and were frightened for us. Dad was still in France but they wouldn’t let him home on compassionate leave.

Sometime after this when I was at school about 2 miles away, the doodlebugs started. You heard the noises like a plane, an awful drone and then silence. You knew once the noise had stopped the bomb could drop anywhere. Anyway, I was at school this day and there was this noise and it stopped, and to me it looked as though it was roughly in the direction of our house. So I just went crazy, my Mum was at home. In the end a teacher came with me. Luckily for us but not for the people, it was a quarter of a mile away (Earlham Grove) from our home.

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