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Don McDouall was evacuated from London during World War II when he was five years old. He was sent to the small country village of East Hanney to live with Grans and Grampy at a house called Tamarisk. He now lives in Australia.
Billy Foster was one of the four Londoners placed in Grans care. Billy was by far the eldest, a lot older than me, perhaps nine years old. All four of us slept in one large double bed. This didn't last very long as feather mattresses and urine mixed together smelt awful. So when Billy and Danny were gone, Roy and I were quickly banished to sleep on a lumpy straw filled 'palliasse'.
Billy made our life hell with his incessant pinching and biting. Thankfully for all concerned, Billy never stayed very long at Grans, perhaps two months at the most. Then he returned to the city to be with his mum.
Danny McCarthy was six years old, the same age as Roy. Danny just cried and cried. He was always crying! All one could remember of him was his incessant howling. His mum eventually came and took him home, lucky Danny.
That left Roy Kemp and me. Roy was a year older then me. He was Chinese, or so everyone said. Most kids at school called him 'Chinky'. Roy wore weird looking steel rimmed glasses. The glass frames looked like they were made from tightly coiled spring wire and most likely were. Local village kids therefore added 'four eyes' to 'chinky', but I liked him.
Roy's sister Rose was billeted in the same street in Swindon as my sister Esther. Swindon was eighteen miles away from East Hanney but it may as well have been a thousand miles.
It is hard to comprehend all these years later why the wise men of London town deemed in their infinite wisdom that it was best to break up families. As if just being parted from your parents wasn't traumatic enough for such small children. However, segregating boys and girls, irrespective of whether those in question were related, seemed to be the guiding factor in child welfare of that time.
Alfy Allen was a lot older than me. He and his sister Rosy lived with the Stevens. Alfy was very clever. He could make great models of warships and aeroplanes and made rings and crucifixes out of the shattered perspex that came from crashed aeroplane windows. He always had time to play with the younger kids.
As youngsters we had two main play areas in our part of the village. One was up against the high wall of Whites house that had a wide ledge as its base. The ledge was quite wide, to the extent that kids could comfortably stand on it. A ditch that ran the full length of the road ran beneath this overhanging ledge.
The wall faced a derelict vacant block of land on the other side of the road. This was a great place for us kids to play, as there were large piles of bricks just about everywhere.
In one corner of the abandoned land was a small hill made from ashes, the leftovers from countless bygone coal fires. The hill was important in many of our games such as 'I'm the king of the castle'. Out of the top of the hillock grew an elderly clump of elderberry bushes. These bushes supplied the local children with peashooters and the berries came in handy for ammunition.
It was here that us London kids played our hundreds of make believe games. Many 'lets pretend' houses were built. Many imaginary air raids took place and many a copycat battle was fought. All this was achieved by kids using the abandoned building materials.
A game that was commonly played many, many times was 'attackers and defenders'. The 'defenders' would build little make believe houses from the countless heaps of rejected bricks. Then 'the attackers' would bombard these structures with a set amount of bricks, make-believe bombs. Every allied battle and every air raid that any of us may have experienced or heard about was re-fought in this game.
If it was raining or it was very cold we would all lean on the old brick wall standing on the ledge, being extra careful that we didn't fall into the cold water. When sheltering here Alfy would spend long periods telling us smaller kids very funny stories.
Alfy taught us funny and sometimes very crude ditty's and taught us songs like.
'Under the spreading chestnut tree
where old Hitler said to me
If you want to be a twerp like me
Then join the sodding ARP!'
'Whistle while you work
Hitler made a shirt.
Goring wore it
Churchill tore it!
Wasn't he a twerp!'
The hit songs of the day that we all learnt by heart, went:
'Kiss me goodnight sergeant major, tuck me in my little wooden bed,
We all love you sergeant major, especially when you show a bit of leg.
Don't forget to call me in the morning and bring me up a nice hot cup of tea
Kiss me goodnight sergeant major, sergeant major be a mother to me'
Sometimes grownups would tell us to shut up as we gave them our version of :
'Bless 'em all, bless 'em all,
The long the short and the tall,
Bless all the sergeants and their blinking sons
And bless all the corporals and their blinking mums'
When we sang and laughed like this, I was very happy.
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