Open Writing

The worry of the bombers returning suddenly during the day time was very frightening. This was always in my mind when people were standing around chatting.. Didn’t they realise that suddenly the planes could come again. Why were theyoutside in the street where they could be hit if planes swooping down to machine gun them? What were they thinking of? I thought then that adults should show more sense.

That night we slept in my Aunt Con’s shelter. It was dark and I felt claustrophobic. I stood outside with the grown ups, watching the planes flying low in great numbers. You could see them so clearly as the whole sky and docks were lit up. It was like Guy Fawkes night, with the noise of the bombs dropping, and factories exploding.

A few days later we left London with two of my mother's sisters with their children and my maternal Grandmother. My uncles followed later . My father’s parents having refused to come with us stayed, as many London people did, living through the whole of the London bombing. They lived through the flying bombs, the Vi and V2’s, sleeping every night in the nearest Underground Tube Station till the war in Europe ended.

Such bravery is listed and written about in many books. and it was a time of great fortitude and courage. It was a time when no one could think of tomorrow.

We left with nothing. We were refugees from London. It was planned that we would all live at Buscot. and we caught a train, intending to go there. It was late at night when the train stopped at Reading. We were all so tired and worn out that it was decided we should stay the night in Reading.

My Aunt May and my parents had friends who lived there. They made up beds on the floor, gave us food and made us very welcome. I will never forget that night. It was like another world and yet we were only forty miles away from London. It was quiet and peaceful almost unbelievable. There was not a sign of the war going on only forty miles away. No sirens sounded and we were able to sleep right through the night until the morning.

It was on that night I made myself a promise. I would in future always appreciate my bed and my sleep. Many years have passed and I still appreciate my sleep and a comfortable bed for I can never forget the tiredness we suffered and the torture of not being allowed to have a full nights sleep.

The next day the grown-ups decided that we would not go on to Buscot after all, but look for a house so that all the family could share together till each had found suitable accommodation.

Mum had to take the top floor of the house as we were all older children. Every drop of water had to be brought up from three floors down. There were times when we had only coal dust to make a fire in the room. All our family had to sleep in one room and eat, cook and wash in the other room. The toilet was downstairs in the garden and Dad was away working at Rochester on war work, and came home at week ends when he could.

Life was never the same again for me. My schooling had been so disrupted that when I was sent to E.P. Colliers, Grammar school in Reading I could not concentrate or remember anything. I did not know which was North, South, East or West. I did not know which was my right or my left, and the most ordinary simple things I had learned when in primary school had gone. All I could do was add up and this I did well.

Children were unkind, as children will be, and again I suffered name calling. This time it was ‘Evacuee’.

I was nearly fourteen when I started at the Reading school. I was put into a class lower than where I was at my school in Millwall.

"Oh! you are an evacuee?'' This was said as if I had something wrong with me. Children would call after me too. It all became too much and I begged my mother to let me leave school.

I think she must have realised that I was not the keen industrious student I had been and finally she went to the school and asked if they would release me. I was supposed to stay till I was sixteen, but by then I was fifteen and they allowed me to go.

Even thoughI was not happy at school I was certainly not ready to go out into the wide world to work.

I know I felt very uncomfortable in my shoes which had Cuban heels, flesh coloured stockings instead of black wool, and my hair curled.

No more white ankle socks, No more school uniform. I had to grow up suddenly. Children adapt easily , so they say, and I was one who did.

Soon I was into fashion, make-up, and curling my long thick chestnut hair into the latest styles, a skill for which I developed a flair.

I was now grown-up and I had no idea it had happened. I had always thought I would feel different, with the world suddenly opening up, giving me the chance to do all the things I wanted to do and be all the things I wanted to be. But it was not like that at all.

So the years passed by and the war ended.

Reading became the place where my parents settled for the rest of their lives. Mum still lives there, in the same house she has lived in for fifty seven years.

She was ninety last year and is wonderful for her age.
She still looks good, and likes to present herself well. Every morning she makes up and puts on her earrings. She cooks every day for herself and is still fussy about hygiene. Dad died six years ago and Mum misses him an awful lot.

Many years ago we returned to visit Buscot Park. The gardens and lake looked unkempt. The stately home, no longer stately in my eyes. Everything seemed to be so much smaller than I had remembered it. It was all very disappointing.

The wonder it once held for me had gone, and I was sad.
However the memories stay alive and comfort me, for in my thoughts it remains as it was when I was an Evacuee.

But isn’t that always the way? Nothing is the same as it was when you were a child.