|
 | |  | |
One of my first recollections is being in hospital with pneumonia when I was one year old, wrote Joyce Gale. The hospital was West London (Hammersmith) and the year, 1940.
The cot was one of three in a small ward and the nurse would come each night to put shutters up at the windows to black the light going outside. I did not have any visitors as this was discouraged during the war until my parents came to take me home after recovery to where we lived in Richmond Surrey.
My father dug a large hole in the garden, building an air-raid shelter made of brick. He covered the outside in soil, making it to look like a rockery with plants. Steps lead down to a door and inside were bunk beds.
There was an escape exit at the back. (This air raid shelter was still there, but with a greenhouse on top when my parents moved away in 1968.) It did not seem to work out as my elder brother and I both got asthma attacks inside.
We also had a large steel table shelter in the back room of the house. We spent most nights under this, five of us including my granny. In the day we ate our meals off it. There were always the black-outs: my dad putting up wood slats he had made at the windows of the house.
When I was about four my mother took me on a train to an aunt in Devon and left me there. My brother followed three weeks later. We used to hear the sirens there but there was no bombing.
But to keep me in the cul-de sac my aunt told me there were Germans beyond our road. Consequently when they took me for a walk I was terrified the whole trip.
On returning home I went to Mortlake Primary School, which seemed quite a walk. In the afternoon at the infants we had to lie on canvas beds for a nap. We had orange juice and milk, which in the winter was warmed in the bottles being put in a sink of hot water.
There was only one toilet for us young ones and the sinks to wash in were outside in the cold. I stayed at this school until eleven.
At about eight, my brother who was eight years older then me, took me to Kew Gardens which was a walk away, and we would feed the birds there as they were very tame -- they would birch on your hand to feed.
We often went to Kew Gardens as it was then only a penny to get in, and there was so much to see with lovely walks and a lake with a black swan on it. We also went to Richmond Park to find newts and tadpoles in the pond.
Then I went to Hertford Avenue Girls' School, East Sheen, which seemed lovely compared to the primary school. The headmistress would never allow us to be seen out without our proper school uniform including a beret in winter.
We also had lovely green playing fields and were able to walk out during lunch hour. I remember the spearmint ice-lollies we would buy on the way home.
Joyce Gale, Bristol, 2002
| |  | |  |
To add a comment you must first login or join for free, up in the top left corner.
|
|
