Dad was always fun to be with and enjoyed every situation his way, so I was very amused to see him conform to Madame’s request because I knew that to him all this would seem unnecessary. However, all went well although he couldn’t resist some fun when we left the church. (See photo) The reception catered by Pringles Restaurant was excellent, and our honeymoon was in Jersey during their celebration time known as the “Jersey Battle of Flowers.” Our hotel’s entry was ‘Lady Godiva on her horse.’ The girl chosen to be Lady Godiva was lovely and we were on the committee to make the float, threading hundreds of white daisies onto the wire netting horse. We did have fun and I believe took first prize. Alf and I bought a large, three-storey house in Chiswick (with a huge mortgage!) from my Aunt. It was divided into two small and two large flats, so we let three and moved into the large ground floor flat. All went well until war was declared in 1939. Then everyone moved out of London, and I was left with empty flats whilst Alf was in India with the Air Force. The government offered to take all children out of London to safety in the country if their parents agreed, but I was determined to keep my baby daughter with me. We had an air-raid shelter in the garden, and night after night we were woken by the sirens warning us of German planes coming to bomb London. This went on for months and while we were there, our windows and French doors were all blown out by the blasts. One night I felt so exhausted that I decided to stay in my bed and have my child close to me and take the chance of a bomb falling on us, hoping that if we were hit we would both die. This was not to be because neighbours came bursting into my bedroom demanding that we go to the shelter which was so small we could only sit close together in it. People were so concerned for each other during the war. My father did not have to go to war because he was needed to pilot boats carrying petrol and supplies on the Thames. He decided that the family must get out of the bombing and move into the country. He managed to find three sections or sites in Bookham, Surrey, so he and mum had one, Elsie had another and Alf and I had the third. They were situated in fields a long walk from the road at Effingham, near Bookham, in Surrey. We needed to put dwellings on them but for some time nothing could be found as everything was taken for the war effort, even the iron railings in front of our Chiswick house! But dad knew many people and eventually he located three wooden huts, one for each of us. They were so small and frail with old corrugated iron on the roof, but they were a means of being able to sleep at night - a real luxury after living in London. I remember one night in a storm I had to climb onto the roof and try to fix the corner of corrugated iron that had been lifted by the wind. It was hard living as we had little room to move in and no electricity, no water, no phone, no kitchen and only an outside toilet. The toilet was away from the hut and we had a rope leading from our hut to it and to the nearby shelter in case we needed it on a dark night. We bought lamps and cooked on a primus stove. Sometimes the flames rose quite near to the low ceiling. That was quite an experience for a city girl! Water had to be carried quite a distance from a stand pipe on a nearby chicken farm, and we were amazed at just how much water we needed. We city folk found all this very hard to cope with, but nobody seemed to grumble because everyone had problems. However, there was little to do and the walk was good exercise even if the ground was muddy and the grass wet after heavy rain! Food was difficult and had to be carried quite a distance from the shops. We had ration books allowing ten pennyworth of meat, two ounces of butter and two ounces of sugar per week per person. Sometimes I was able to exchange my sugar coupons for tea or butter with friends who had a very sweet tooth! Some other things we wanted - if available - came in from time to time in the shops but naturally the shopkeepers looked after the locals first so we seldom got anything extra. We lived that way for quite some time. While still living in our little huts, the bombing started all around us. One night when oil bombs had been dropped the fields around us were alight. They were cornfields just ready to be cut and so were very dry. An air raid Warden came and told us to get out and follow him. I was alone with my child that night as my parents were away and so was my sister. We had never seen an air raid Warden before as we lived so far from a road. On the way another woman joined us and we ran as fast as we could. This was difficult because the blankets that I had wrapped sylvia in kept getting caught on blackberry bushes. The other woman ran ahead of me and then I heard her call out, “Don’t come to the left because I have fallen down a bomb crater.” Carefully I went to the right - and also fell into a crater! I was unable to climb out because the earth was so loose, causing me to go further down with every movement. After a while I heard the Warden calling us. He was so scared that he hadn’t waited for us but tore on ahead. It took time to get us out and then I proceeded to the shelter that he was taking us to. A large hole had been dug and the frame of an iron bedstead had been put over the top covered with timber, then with earth piled on top of that. Once inside we could see the edges of the bedstead were only overlapping the top of the hole by an inch or two and looked most unsafe. The walls were wet and we sat on a plank. Another tiring and uncomfortable night! Bombs fell but fortunately not close to us, otherwise I’m sure the whole of the top of the shelter would have fallen in on us. As soon as it was daylight I insisted on returning to our hut. A nearby chicken farm with hundreds of chickens had received a direct hit. There wasn’t a chicken to be seen - they had all been buried. What a night! I called to see how the lady who ran the chicken farm was and I found several women there with their heads under the kitchen table and their bottoms sticking out! They just couldn’t get under any further. Well, I just stood and laughed. Then they all laughed too which released the tension. We learned later that a large number of Canadian forces and their machine guns were stationed in nearby woods so the Germans were evidently trying to bomb them. We didn’t know they were there, but the Germans obviously did! Very soon after this we were told to pack a small bag and have it ready at all times because we were the second line of defence. This meant that should the sea area be attacked we would be collected in an army truck and taken somewhere safer. Fortunately this never happened. We heard many tales - one was ………. If the Germans managed to take England all small children would be taken into big childcare buildings where they would be treated very poorly, and we would never see them again. This left us wondering what would we do if we heard our defence lines had fallen. Would we stay and allow this to happen or would we do away with our children and then ourselves? Fortunately we never had to make this decision. |
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