I was evacuated to a farm, but it was not a stranger’s farm because my Nan lived there. I had to go because of the bombs being dropped on London. I remember in London we used to have to go to the cellar under the local Dance Hall. The siren would go and we would have to leave our houses and go down these steps, then the siren would sound again, this was called the All Clear. I remember we also had a brick shed in our back garden (in Barking, East London) and we would again go down some steps into the shed. Then an Anderson shelter appeared in our living room. We would crawl in at night when the planes were going overhead. It would be quiet and then you could hear the drone of the plane, then there was absolute silence and you knew the planes were dropping the bombs, then the droning would start again. I remember my mother used to hold me tight and say over and over again in my ear ‘God help us.’ Over and over she would say it and I think now that it made me so stressed and it filled me with such worry and I wish we had played card games in the shelter instead.In the end, I don’t think any bombs were dropped on my street. I was only a little girl, I don’t remember much. I do remember when the bombs dropped on a church when all the choir boys were practicing and they all died.Most of all I remember the animals on my Nan’s farm, when I lived there. There was a goat on a chain and sometimes it would wait for you when you went to the outside toilet. There was only an outside toilet. You weren’t supposed to reach in and touch the new animals when they had just been born but I could not resist putting in my hand and touching all the little bunnies and the little chicks. They were so sweet. The smell stays with you after all these years.
