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When my Nan was a girl, at the age of six, she was on Brighton beach ordering sandwiches with her mum, two sisters, aunty and cousin when war was declared over the radio. They all ran back, up a steep hill and into the bed and breakfast hotel where they were staying and the landlady let down the big thick ammonia curtains , Nan nearly choked to death! So they packed their things and caught the next train home to Stepney as quickly as they could.
Nan went to Winton school she remembers that the air raid shelters were dark, smelly, and damp and she was evacuated from there after it was bombed. They walked from Stepney to Kings' Cross, kicking a match box all the way, everywhere was on fire. Then a bus driver took my Nan and her big sister Florry and mum to the train and my Nan's mum waved her and her sister off. They both arrived at the Devon evacuee's shelter. The two people that looked after Nan had gone to the shelter for two boys but there weren't any boys left it was just my Nan and her sister. So they took them home with them, they were the kindest people ever.
They lived on a farm and believe it or not they were known as Uncle Bert and Aunty Floss. The name of the farm was Tiverton and they had quite a lot of animals on it and at the time my Nan had a disease called rheumatic fever but she still helped around the farm and rode the ponies and horses. My Nan loved it and they weren't short of food either. Nan had rabbit stew, potatoes, beef, carrots, fish and all vegetables. Sweets were rationed to ten a week but when Nan ran out of sweets her Aunt Floss made a ball of mint, Nan also got to take two sweets to school each day. Nan had her own ration book and identity card along with a heavy gas mask. Children were always too hungry to ever say 'I don't want' or 'I don't like'.
During the war they had to use pieces of newspaper to wipe themselves with after they went to the toilet, if they could find it they would use a picture of Hitler's face!
The children looked forward to Sundays because they would go to church three times a day, first thing in the morning, then again in the afternoon and in the evening too. Perhaps they looked forward to this as there was not much to do apart from helping on the farm and making a patchwork quilt.
School was harsh; if you answered back you got the cane, in school children wrote on chalk boards. She was allowed out on her own from the age of eight. Her sister was 14 and worked making books; her working day was from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
When she came back from Devon aged 13 Lynn was met by her mum at Paddington Station, she had been away from home for seven years. At the end of the war there were street parties everywhere.

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