Memories of my childhood during WW2
Living in Oxfordshire.
Starting school.
1942
School days are supposed to be the happiest days of your life, so they say. The day I started school remains in my memory as a bad experience. I remember my mother taking me to school with my brother John. I went along happily enough thinking I would be with my brother all day in school. However, as soon as we were taken to different classes my confidence hit rock bottom. I was quite small for my age and I had led a sheltered life. My mother and I were constant companions. I liked to help with the housework, making the house tidy every day or simply playing in the garden while she did her knitting.
The other children at school made friends easily, but my brother was my best friend and I couldn't understand why we needed to be separated. I disliked using the school lavatories, which were dark and smelly. I did my best to avoid them until one day I wet my knickers in class. The teacher told me to go to the girl's lavatory to wait for help. I was terribly embarrassed and to add to my distress, the other girls kept pushing the door open and laughed at me. I could not understand why girls were so bitchy and unkind to each other. John and I played without quarreling, why were they picking and choosing, special friends all the time, instead of all joining in. I avoided girls as much as I could and looked out for John if I wanted to play with someone.
John wore glasses from about two years old. The doctor said he had to wear his glasses all day at school. A patch covered one eye and this was to correct the weak muscles that controlled his eyes. He was allowed to take his glasses off at playtime, avoiding the risk of breaking them. His eyes looked strange to these girls and they called him "goggle eyes".
It was at school, that I first learned about my father and his "other woman." I was told a lot of bad things about my dad.
My mother knew something was wrong with me not settling down at school. I became more and more nervous and withdrawn. I became ill, having colds, urinary tract infections, ear and throat infections, as well as picking up the usual childhood illnesses. I missed a lot of schooling and consequently got behind in my lessons. Mum had got a job at the munitions factory once i started school. It was arranged that our next door neighbor would be keeping an eye on us after school. Our neighbor had six children of her own and it was a noisy house. Her children argued a lot and she would swear at the" little bleeders " as she called them.
John, and I became "latchkey" children. We could let ourselves into the house using the key that was tied to the letterbox. It wasn't very nice coming into an empty house, but mum would leave us something to eat to keep us going until she came home.
At school, the bullying continued and I did everything I could to avoid school. I skipped school sometimes and ran away from home. My mother or the boys would usually find me down by the river or climbing trees. On one of these adventures, our neighbors' child Janet, came with me. We were going to run away and not come back. I took a loaf and some butter from the pantry and bundled up a few things to start a new life. We were going to live like Tarzan with the animals for company. I can remember we had found a great hideaway and we were sitting quite securely up in an old oak tree when it got dark. My mother and Janet's mother, as well as some other people that knew us had been looking for us for hours before getting the police involved. The local "Bobbie"( policeman ) and my mother found us at about eleven o'clock at night. The pair of them on bicycles with torches were very worried by this time. Janet and I were feeling cold and hungry, so we gave ourselves away when they passed us by. We had mixed feelings about being found, not sure what was going to happen to us now. Mum told Janet her mother was at the police station waiting for her and was looking very cross. when we arrived. The Policeman said we had to go to the station to be seen by the Sargent and were threatened with being locked up for the night. However after a good talking to we were allowed home. Mum told me later she had to pay 2 shillings and sixpence to get me out of jail!
Mum decided to give up her job at the factory. She could not allow these problems to get any more out of hand. I was about eight years old and John was ten. The past three years of lack of control had to stop.
A few months passed and my mother got the boys enrolled in the cub scouts and I began to take dancing lessons. I enjoyed tap dancing the most. Ballet dancing was more difficult for me.
I did enjoy being a little girl again, dressing up in girly costumes and performing on stage. My dance teacher asked my mother to make little dresses out of an evening dress made of red satin. She took the dress apart and made three dresses, with knickers to match for me and two friends in the class. My dancing teacher was delighted and we looked and felt wonderful in our new dresses. My dance class got to perform at the New Theatre Oxford. We tap danced to Shirley Temple"s song Animal Crackers.
I can still remember some of the words that we must have driven everyone up the wall, singing.
Animal Crackers in my soup,
monkeys and rabbits loop the loop.
Gosh, oh gee, but I have fun,
swallowin' animals one by one.
In every bowl of soup, I see,
lions and tigers watching me.
I make 'em jump right through a hoop,
those animal crackers in my soup.
Shirley Temple
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