All of the kids were evacuated from London during the Blitz in 1939. Olive went to live with her Aunt Kate in Pitsea near South End On Sea.
- watching doodlebugs flying overhead being chased by spitfires
- having a V2 land nearby and break all the windows
- years later discovering that was where the Nichols lived. Olly and John even went to the same school.
- 1994 Steve visits Pitsea with Bob and Olive, and Great Chalvedon Hall in Basildon near Pitsea
Insert photo of Olly on tree near lake.
- Dornier shot down crashed in field near people including uncle frank, two Germans injured, climbing out, plane blew up, village policeman all buttons blown off, trousers fallen down etc. uncle frank got schrapnel from explosion
- pet jackdaw (used to sleep in bedroom) warned about doodlebugs coming before they were heard or seen bird spoke "come on get up" and called Olive (14 years old, 1942) by name
- school still had iron railings - nothing else did
- peggy airdale
- barrage balloon nearby - Italian prisoners of war - helped to man this - local girls used to hang over railings chatting to them - anchored in school playground
- incendiary bombs (12942) Frank was warden,
WARTIME MEMORIES OF AN EVACUEE - 1940
Great Chalvedon Hall stood in all its three-storied dilapidated Elizabethan grandeur, ten minutes across King's Field which was separated by King's Field from where I had been evacuated to live with my Great Aunt Kate, her dog, cat, goat, and rabbits, the latter sadly taken to the butcher in war time exchange for feed for the rest of her animals.
My aunt's friend Nan was the caretaker of the Hall, being a heritage building at that time little had been to change it in any way, apart from necessary repairs. It was a wonderment of adventure for me. Both Nan and my Aunt took sick and deprived children under their wing, and when restored to health returned to the families, but Mabel was Nan's ward a couple of years older than me, and we became great mates.
Nan and my Aunt Kate kept goats for their milk to nourish their sick children, and it was to the amusement of the Cowman with his six heifers grazing in King's Field to see these goats on their long chains being led from the Hall to an acre of Dolce Domum for a feed of fresh grass.
My Aunt also kept a spiteful gander in the paddock at Dolce Domum with his four female geese. He would chase everyone and the only way out to Kings Field was through his paddock - a pity we didn't have a movie camera in those days! We eventually had a good Christmas dinner to celebrate the end of the war with that gander much to my father's distress - for some odd reason he admired that gander, and of course he was a great watchdog.
At the back of the house from Nan's kitchen (now a tea shop) the back door led out and further along to our delight to the old Elizabethan kitchen with its original stone floor; a huge fireplace with a spit large enough to roast an ox, and large hooks handing from the ceiling.
From the kitchen halfway down the narrow corridor it widened - on the right a narrow door led down a few concrete steps leading downward and then filled in and much to our disgust had been blocked. It was the beginning of a secret tunnel leading to Basildon Castle a few miles away. I knew where it led, for when coming over to the Hall as soon as I entered its grounds I would feel the ground soft, and would give a yodel to let Mabel know I was coming.
Further down that corridor was the drawing room, French windows leading to an outside terrace, and beware anyone over 5.1/2 ft tall for running down the middle of the room a thick oaken beam led to the very large fireplace. Those days the fireplace had been filled in to take a modern small fireplace and still room for an armchair each side (as long as you ducked under mantel beam'.
At the end of the corridor was a room the width of the house being the 'armoury' with the remnants of hooks etc., upon the walls.
On the second floor towards the east the corner bedroom had blocks to stop the beds ending up in the corner in the morning - the floors being built from oak of old, or sunken, Royal Navy ships from the Armada - as was the rest of the Hall.
Halfway along the corridor were three steps downwards, a small room on the left, which we called the blue room and further down on the right another bedroom. At the end of the long corridor there was a room running above the armoury below and on the outside wall was embedded in plaster a thick oaken beam shaped like the entry to a chapel, long gone, and probably demolished during the religious wars!
I spent many happy hours in the magnificent lavender garden obviously planted where once the chapel had stood, and now a restaurant - and I wonder if the patrons in the restaurant still smell lavender in their soup and hear the hymns of praise of those long dead Elizabethans!
Of course Great Chalvedon Hall is haunted!!! Ghosts! My Aunt's dog Bruno followed me everywhere, yet I could not coax him past halfway in the upstairs hail no matter how hard I tried. We relished in the idea of Ghosts??? My Uncle who later became the caretaker of Gt. Chalvedon Hall later found a "Priests Hole" above that blue room and step area in one of the two attics behind the giant Elizabethan chimney block which came up through the centre of the building.
I think we explored every inch of that house, the barns, the pig styes and the wonderful thatched horse stables. Sadly one winter after hundreds of years the beams of the stables collapsed inwards, and the thatch fell over intact.
I went to a great school, being picked up by a school bus. There were air-raid shelters and we would have practice runs. Fortunately the school was only bombed once on a weekend! Pitsea is in Essex and we could see each nigh the red in the distance of the red sky over London as it burned during the blitz. We spent most nights in the concrete shelter during that bad time and would hear the Dornier's as they flew over our part of the country on their way to London to drop their bombs and on their return drop in random any left over - we copped a few of those.
We would watch in awe as the spitfires and messerschmidts fought so high in the sky we would see their white trails weaving high in the sky, during the day - the 'Battle of Britain', little realising at the time how important that day was. I would wonder if my cousin was one of them. He later was shot down over France, near a village and the villagers hid him, but he later died. When his two brothers went over after the war to bring his body back to England, the villagers begged them to leave him as they had raised a memorial to him. "Spitfire Pilot Lt. Harold Blackman" awondered.
We were very lucky - only once machined gunned as we sat down to Sunday dinner and we all ducked under the table.
My father had a petrol allowance due to his job, and would come down for the weekend bringing friends for an R. And R. The ARP wardens in Laindon - the area before Pitsea - would try and catch him for an exercise. One day when my family were on their way to Pitsea they sheltered under a tree during a raid. A Dornier was brought down nearby and a Spitfire followed it down. That day they had with them my Uncle who was on leave and he began to run over towards the plane to get their papers.
Two Germans were dragging two of their other crew from the wreck and stopped him - "Nein Nein -
bombs" and he held up four fingers. The next minute they went off and my Uncle, being closer, was lucky only to get wounded with shrapnel in his thigh. My mother had ducked behind a haystook, but the policeman who had just arrived on the scene and running ahead had his buttons blown off
trousers causing them to fall down. "I can see your mother uses Persil", my mother quipped. Anyway that is the story they told us when they reached the safety of "Dolce Domum" translated it means 'Home sweet Home'. 1942 was the yea
I returned home from evacuation with my Great Aunt Kate in Pitsea, to Upton Park, Forest Gate, which is east of London, We lived opposite a three story Victorian school, our house overlooking the playground, and there sat the same balloon as when I had been hustled off on
'evacuation' , whose long dangling ropes of light chain had knocked off our chimney pot several times. The only difference being it was now worked by Italian prisoners of war. I was very naive and wondered why girls used to hang around the school railings! I hated that balloon.
It had been one of the reasons our dear old Airedale Peggy had had to be put to sleep. She had been terrified of that balloon, and went crazy when the mobile ack-ack- guns went down our road. My mother swore she heard her bark as she left the vet, and we wondered if someone, a professional dog
trainer, had found it possible to calm her and train her as a war dog - anyway - that is what we hoped for she was very intelligent.I had brought home with me a black Jackdaw, a clever mimic of words (pure black the size of a pigeon) whose first words were "Olive, will you get up"! He was very tame and slept in my bedroom. He graduated from there to a large cage in the back garden, but spent most of the time indoors after school with me.
The doodlebugs began to harass London. Our windows were blown out and covered with brown paper one day, only to have them blown out again and ceilings down. They were a joke in a way - we'd watch the noisy things coming and dive for cover when the engine stopped. Jackie would hear them coming long before us, and call out for my mother "Bean, Bean, Bean," in a very shrill voice - that being her nickname. Even the neighbours listened out for Jackie's shrill call of warning.
However, when the doodlebugs ceased followed by the silence of the V.2 explosions which happened anywhere without warning and for the first time people lost their sense of humour and courage. They were terrifying. Fortunately the Normandy landings were able to quickly overcome where they were being launched.
1945 - the end of the war our family stood outside Buckingham Palace, by the Victoria Fountain, cheering as the royal family came out of the balcony several times to wave a the crowds - AND NORMAL LIFE BEGAN AGAIN (except there was no end to rationing.)
No comments:
Post a Comment