I was born in Brussels, Belgium and luckily came to London with my mother in 1936 when I was not quite five years old and if that hadn't happened I wouldn't be here today to speak to you about being an evacuee in wartime England.
You know children in those days lived very different lives than those of today. We had no television, no video, no computers, no electronic games and the word teenager didn't exist. We were virtually little mini adults and I expect you would have found life very boring but the war came and life became far from boring. So believe it or not I found it exciting when I was told that I was going to be evacuated I wasn't even sure what it meant but I soon found out…
War was declared on September 3rd but two days earlier on September 1st my school was evacuated. I can remember arriving in Waterloo station with hundreds of other children. We wore our school uniform and we each were given a square box, which contained a frightening looking gas mask, a small canvas satchel containing rations, which were a tin of sardines, a packet of currants, and a tin of spam, which was a horrible luncheon meat. A label was tied onto our blazers with our name and the name of the school. I can't remember much of the train journey except we were all terribly excited, we didn't know where we were going only it was rumoured that it was the seaside. Well the rumour was right and the train drew into a place called Worthing.
Well, we were met at the station and we were taken straight away to our billets. I remember standing in a queue of children and people came out of houses and chose a child. I was very, very lucky in my first billet. Mr and Mrs Palmer lived in a beautiful modern house on the edge of the South Downs, they had no children of their own and made a great fuss of me. I remember entering this house and immediately the siren went frightening the life out of everybody. We put our gas masks on, and we looked ghastly and they suffocated us. Then I dropped the bag of currants and they went all over the floor and naturally I cried and cried. I don't know whether you have ever heard that wartime siren, but it was terrifying. Anyway on this occasion it was a false alarm.
I settled in very quickly as a seven year old to a very orderly life. The first period of the war was called the 'phoney war', the calm before the storm.
The Palmers were very cultivated people and loved music and art and the house was full of pictures and books. Mr and Mrs Palmer were very musical and played the violin and cello. They had musical evenings at home.
At the beginning of the war we were not really deprived of food that came soon enough. I remember a few years later being given a banana for the first time and I bit into the skin, can you imagine? So, food and clothes were rationed, we couldn't just go to the sweet shop and buy. We were rationed to 3 oz a week, which is about 350 grams. Clothes were also hard to come by and there was a phrase 'make do and mend' and that has stayed with me all my life, I still can't bear to waste anything and will wear clothes and shoes until they are worn out. By the way, my daughter, used to say I kept food until it turned into penicillin. Well, that was the effect of my wartime childhood. We all had blue ration books, which we had to take to the shops and as we bought something the coupons were cut out and then there was no more until the following week. I craved for sweets and as a substitute we would eat currants or buy a penny carrot. I always seemed to be hungry. Mr Palmer was a retired baker and on my birthday, which is Christmas Day, he had a wonderful birthday cake made for me and I remember it had "Happy Birthday Suzzanne" on it, spelt with two Z's and I thought that was wonderful. I was laden with presents, including a knitting bag with turquoise wool, and I learnt to knit when I was eight years old. As I said, I was lucky to be with these people, but after a year it wasn't considered safe for children to be at the seaside. Although we could never go on the beach, it was covered with barbed wife in case of invasion and the beach was planted with landmines. So, we were taken from Worthing, Hertford, not a million miles was from Potters Bar. In those days it was along way to travel.
My next billet was also amazing, but it did get much worse after that, I think my story is a bit like Black Beauty, if you've read that. Things getting progressively worse for the poor horse. Anyway, now I was billeted with a lady called Ms Reeds, who lived in a large house together with her maid Bertha. She was a maiden lady and had no idea how to look after children. Again, the lady loved books and her house was like a library, in fact, there was one, so I was in my element. We used to eat in great style and there was never a true expression, all style, and no substance. The food was served by Bertha offering us the food covered by a silver tureen. But underneath would be a measly scrap of meat, or a horrible sausage, with lots of potatoes. I used to help Bertha clean the silver after school, and then I would listen to children's hour on the radio, just for one hour, then I would read and read. Remember, no television, and there were no washing machines. Ms Reeds employed a washing woman to do that, and it was my job to take the bundles of washing down to her, and her son, Roy, would bring the washing back. I was around 9 then, and I think I was in love with Roy.
Of course, the war was going full-blast by then, the sirens would wail and we would have to go into these awful Anderson shelters in the garden. Cold and damp and horrible, sometimes we would have to sleep in them with itchy blankets and plenty of spiders. I was always being told 'Stop fidgeting Suzanne'.
I could go on and on about Ms Reeds but would you believe, in Hertford I was shunted into another six billets.
I'd like to tell you about one of the horrible houses I lived in. I was about 11 years old and I was taken to some people called Mr and Mrs Dance and there were three other people there, it was really like living in Victorian England. These people were florists and they taught us children to make Wreaths and Crosses, as their speciality as florists was funerals. It was very hard work and the wires hurt our fingers. That wasn't so bad, but a week after the funeral, it was my job, with another little girl, to go to the cemetery, collect the Wreaths and Crosses, and take them back to Mr and Mrs Dance. So we used to go with a little wheelbarrow, to the cemetery at around 6.30 in the morning to collect them. I think the authorities found out as I was sent to another billet - perhaps I should write a book!
The war lasted 6 years and took away my childhood. I was 14 when I returned home but that's another story.
