Memories of War - The Forgotten Casualties (1) - by Patricia Bolter

Lower Mall From The Barnes Bank c1960
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I am entering these memories on behalf of my mother in law - Patricia Ross (nee Bolter)

Running to meet Dad, just a young man, in uniform for the first time coming home to show us in pride. Providing for the family had been difficult, even tried sweeping snow. I have listened to "The Little Boy That Santa Clause Forgot" could only cry "I don't want my Dad to go away" but what does a 4 year old really understand. We had watched Dad and Uncles dig a shelter in our yard and played getting into it quickly, it was dark and damp. Mum fell down the steps but we were "SAFE . Save The Children? What have we learned?" Fetching Granny and relatives to share our shelter for the first air raid, cushions on head for protection from shrapnel. Naive . .

Issued with Mickey Mouse gas masks in a cardboard box with a shoulder string, the smell of rubber, no understanding of why they are necessary.

Mum with 4 of us under 5 years, just a kid herself as she was only 17 when I was born. Now Dad is in the army. How will she cope. Dad decided that we would be safer evacuated so he took us to Windsor, a friend of Mum's came with her 3 children but it didn't work out - my sister badly cut her arm on a milk bottle.

Then I remember being in another home, Tiverton this time with the owners. Mum was expecting her 4th child and when the child was born she called her Coralie after the daughter of the house who, as I recall, was in her early teens. I remember my 3rd sister sitting outside cuddling what I thought were 2 rabbits - one in each arm, but they were rats, that caused a commotion. But Mum got homesick and bought us all back home when Dad came home on leave, he was frightened for our safety. Anyway we had to go - Mum wouldn't come so we children were evacuated.

We eldest 2 were awoken early for breakfast, a treat of Iced Gems - little biscuits . . which I've never been able to eat since. Our belongings in packs on our backs and labels to identify us.

The station was packed with crying children and parents. I remember the smoking train, the last farewells, trying to be brave and smile, never the same again. Arriving at the transit camp; a school hall . awaiting our collection . we were among the last to be assigned as I kept insisting that we not be parted; these had been my Dad's last instructions. Get the feeling we were in the way. Eventually go home with a lovely old couple; returned the next day old couple can't manage, new home.

Now starts the real awareness of being a nuisance, in the way; don't eat too much, make a mess, noise, retaliate to son of house, must stay out of house Saturday and Sunday. Wander unfamiliar streets, cold and hungry, were discovered in an air raid shelter trying to keep warm with a box of matches by a kind lady who warmed and fed us, beaten for falling in a pig sty while watching them to pass a wet Sunday afternoon, beaten for treading on wet floor. My teacher asked me if we were being ill treated but at 5, in a strange world and frightened dare one confess, anyway my sister got re-housed so were split up, she went to a lovely home, was treated like a princess. I being the eldest had been well trained and became a little skivvy. The householder became pregnant hence relieved of her obligation to house me, so after months, which seemed like years, I was passed on to a cheery couple, old but kind. Now I settle into a pattern of life different, but happier, free to come and go until 1945, though not without incident . . . visits to the delousing station and the government store for clothes. I roamed the spinney and once a plane crashed there and we kids found body parts scattered and a man still in the tail, I wonder did he live? We had solid shelters in the street (a Crescent) where I lived and once a plane, seemed to me, to land on one and the pilot asked if there was any open space. I gave him directions and he landed safely. Later we all went round to look and he recognised me among the crowd, it didn't strike me as strange at the time, though now I don't think I'm believed did I dream it?

Baby-minding took on a new meaning, the daughter of the house whose husband was in the navy, was living a secret existence enjoying a good time with the "Yanks". I would mind baby in the park while she went on to rendezvous with the promise of gum or chocolate . I never did get any . or I would help her take off her make up and put here hair in rags before her Mum and Dad came in from the pub on Saturday evenings making believe she had been home all evening, I having cared for her child yet only one myself really. The son of the home (Albert) was in the army, he sang with the band. I heard him sing 'Dearly Beloved" on the radio once, how I loved it. Sometimes on a summer evening taken to a pub and offering my rendering of "I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire". (continued in Pt.2)