Previous to her marriage my mother had worked as a cook for a Colonel and his family in a large house in Stanmore, Middlesex. At three months old I was christened in Stanmore Parish Church. Thirteen months later my first brother was born at home. My father, a joiner by trade, had to pay for each birth, as was the norm in those days. My mother did not go out to work after her marriage.

My parents rented the ground floor flat of a large house in Harrow Weald that had been converted into two flats, and “upstairs” were “Auntie” Jean and “Uncle” Lal, great friends of my parents. Both families had originally migrated from the North East (Tyneside) looking for work. The couples had met in the area and had been friends for quite a while. “Auntie” Jean and “Uncle” Lal, went on to have two girls, Jean (six months older than me) and Ann (two years younger).

Bearing in mind there was a war in progress, the first two years of my life were pretty uneventful (except for the birth of my brother, on New Year’s Day 1941). My father worked locally for a factory producing aeroplane parts so was exempt from call-up temporarily and I can remember it as a very happy time. The two mums used to do their washing together on a Monday in my mother’s “scullery”, as they shared the garden and two washing lines. There were no washing machines. Sheets ("whites") were boiled up on top of my mother's gas stove in small galvanised baths with handles at each side. It was hard work. But there was a lot of laughter and carry-on. We also shared the bathroom. It worked amazingly well.

But then the war started to affect us with a vengeance, my father got his call-up papers! They were starting to employ women to do the war-work jobs in the factories. He went into the Royal Navy and trained as a Gunner. “Uncle” Lal went into the army. Both wives were left to look after the children and keep the homes going on their own. At first, during the training period, my father was stationed in England, so could get home fairly regularly, albeit with difficulty because of transport problems caused by the bombing. I missed him terribly and was really excited when he came home.

At some time my father fitted us up with a Morrison shelter underneath the living room table and every time the air raid siren sounded my mother made us go into this. It was like a cage made from reinforced wire mesh. There was also a bomb shelter in the back garden called an Anderson shelter but my mother didn’t like to use this as she was scared of us being buried alive. This was approximately a 7ft x 6ft hole dug in the middle of the garden with a roof made from corrugated iron. Sandbags and then soil was piled up on top and grass allowed to grow over it as camouflage. It was very damp and cold in there but it had a small table and chairs and tea making equipment.

In 1943 the bombing got worse and a row of houses behind ours was raised to the ground and all our windows went. Quite a lot of people lost their lives that night in that row of family houses. Our garden caught fire, too, from the incendiary devices the German airmen dropped as they flew over. So the authorities told my mother we had to be evacuated. We were allowed to go to my grandfather’s in Tyneside. But first of all my mother had to board up the house and sort out our ration books, identity and medical cards. The day we finally became evacuees, my brother and I were tied together, labelled with our details and we were sent off by train (the Flying Scotsman) to my Grandfather’s. My grandmother had just died so he was a recent widower with a 12 year old, my Auntie Audrey, who became my playmate and taught me to read and write and to do my shoe-laces up! My mother joined us a week or so later.

I started school at the age of 4 at the local primary school in Tyneside. Children went to school a year earlier in the North East. Early in 1944 my father had managed to get home on leave again. In November my sister, was born in Newcastle Infirmary. She was a very pretty baby weighing in at 12lb. 8ozs. I then didn’t see my father for what seemed quite some time as he was sent abroad to Malta and Alexandria.

In 1945 the war ended and we could go home. But not before a great street party to which I couldn’t go because I had the measles. I remember looking out of the upstairs window of my grandfather's at everyone enjoying themselves.

We came home to the house in Harrow Weald some time in 1945. It had survived the war but needed repair, and although I was nearly six years old by then, I couldn’t go back to school as the intake of children was being phased in because of teacher shortages. I finally went to school again in the September much to the relief of my mother who I must have driven mad in my anxiety to go to school again.

My father was demobbed and came home late in 1945 (I think) and within a short time started to work on the rebuilding programme in the area. He worked with German prisoners of war. I remember one of them came to us for Christmas day one of those Christmas’s straight after the war.

My second brother was born on St. Patrick’s Day 1947. A celebration of life! He weighed in at 14lbs.13ozs and it was a home birth. This time The National Health paid for it. Thick snow was on the ground and it was bitterly cold. I had my first pair of boots on my feet and was very proud of them.

I am still not keen on November 5th!!.