Secondary School

I moved to Hertford AVenue Girls School when I was eleven. Miss Round was the Head Mistriss throughout the time I was their. I found this school very modern as everything was under one roof and you only needed to go outside to play or do games. The meals were much nicer and I enjoyed them. Most of my friends were there and I made new ones.
We had to wear a school uniform including a beret all of navy blue with a badge of blue flowers (speedwell) being the motto.

The setting of the school was very pleasant with open fields for games. Next to us was a Boys Grammer School, and every day the boys walked across out playground to get their cooked lunch from our canteen.

At lunch time we were allowed to leave the school and walk into the nearby park.

My best subject was art and I helped to paint a mural on the wall of the art room with birds and flowers. I also did cooking and would make things to take home I enjoyed my time at this school. I left at fifteen years of age.

They would not teach me to type write or shorthand at this school as my English was poor, so I went to night school and learnt without them knowing.

Primary School

I started Mortlake Primary School, when I was five. The head teacher was Miss Adams. The school was in the main building, then across the play ground was the canteen and a toilet block. At first I hid in the toilet block, so I would not have to have my cooked llunch which I did not like. But I was spotted by Miss Adams and carefully watched so I ate the meal.
Next to our school was a boys secondary school they had an airraid shelter which was underground. After the war this was used to show us infants cartoon films or slides.

One day my mother took me out of school to take me to see the film 'The Wizard of Ozz' this was the first film I saw at the cinema.

When I was a bit older my older brother took me to the saturday morning picture house in The Odean at East Sheen. We went every saturday, then I went with other friends.

I did not excell much at school and left at eleven for the Hertford Avenue Girls School.

Home the Second Time.

My brother Don and I came home together. He went to school and I started school, but then I went down again with double phnemonia and I went into Richmond Hospital, and was put in contraption to help me breathe. I was in their a few weeks, the little girl in the next bed to me died. My father came to see me once in his police uniform, but I was so distressed when he left they restricted visitors. I had to learn to walk again and my mother collected me in a pushchair.

By this time the war was almost ended. But I remember in the school we had air raid shelters but only went in one once.

Home again

I got home and the next thing I remember was my father digging in the garden, he was building an air-raid shelter. This he covered over with rocks creating a rockery garden with the air-raid shelter hidden underneath. Their were steps down to the shelter and another exit at the back. Inside were four bunk beds. This however was hardly ever used in the night as it caused my brother and I to develop asthma with the damp atmosphere. Instead we had an Anderson shelter in the dinning room this we had our meals eaten off in the day and slept underneath at night.

When the war ended my father placed a greenhouse on top of the air-raid shelter


I quite often watched the search lights from my parents window in the evening over Richmond Park.

When I was three I was sent to Devon to stay with an aunt. My mother took me on a train and left me their with this stranger and her daugher who was about sixteen. I was their a few weeks then my brother Don arrived for a while.

My Birth

I was born in Richmond Surrey, England in 1939. Just a couple of months before the 2nd world war.
Richmond, is on the outskirts of London, and has now been brought into the London district. We lived in a semi detached brick house which was varily small. My brother Donald was eight years older than me. We both lived with our mother and father.
My father was a Police man and would ride his pedal cycle to the police station at Barnes, and then walked the beat with another policeman.

I remember being pushed in the pram by the girl next door and taken to the park.

Within a year I was in West London hospital (Hammersmith) with Pneumonia. I was in a cot in a ward with two other young children. At night the nurse would put up wooden slats at the windows to black out any light from showing to the enemy flying over the hospital in airplanes

I was in hospital for a few weeks and during that time I was not allowed visitors. I thought I might forget my mother but when they came to fetch me I remembered them and they took me home.