Bacon pieces and rice pudding

My name is Hazel Rogers, nee Mason and I was born in 1934. The following are my memories of the war but not in chronological order. My home was on the borders of Greater London and Kent.

The first event, at the beginning of the war period, was to have an Anderson shelter and ours was duly erected. It was opposite the chicken run. The shelter flooded every night so the men came and put a 5-6inch cement skin round the inside bottom half; this took space but we did have a shelf and a dryer shelter. The chicken run opposite did, however, flood. The poor chickens were swimming around in water every morning and had to be moved. In time we put a thick layer of earth over the outside of the shelter.

My sister (7 yeras older than me) had taken me and two or three other chiildren to gather blackberries, 1/4 to 1/2 miles away from home when the first Air Raid Siren sounded. I can remember it so well - we were all so frightened and as we ran home my blackberries spilled over from the jam jar and my sister yelled at me to leave them and hurry. A man in the ARP and wearing his tin hat came out from his house and tried to get me to inside with him (nothing sinister but genuine fright in everyone) but my sister insisted we go home. The siren was probably a false alarm as there were no planes, guns etc. This is my first memory of the war.

As the war progressed the Battle of Britain took place. We were watching the planes, British and German, from the back garden, weaving and diving to avoid each other. For us it was exciting but we were ushered into the shelter so did not see too much.

One day my brother was home sick (he is eleven years older than me) and the Siren went. My Mother said we should go straight to the shelter - she could tell by her tummy it was going to be a bad raid- but my brother lay asleep on the old horsehair, leatherette couch. It was a bad raid and the houses just a few yards down the road took a direct hit. My Mother tried to get to my brother but gunfire etc. etc. stopped her. My brother got to the back door and was blown up the garden and was saafely dragged into the shelter. At first we thought he was dead. All our doors and windows were blown out but we knew nothing of this. Just before the All Clear sounded there was a man's voice shouting "Mason, Mason, all you alright?" It was a friend's father (she was with us in the shelter) and Mum asked him how he had got into our back garden - we lived in a terrace house and he replied "you've not doors or windows - they've all gone".

For me the night times were the most frightening, the ack-ack guns being driven round the streets were so loud, so noisey and so frightening. Inside the shelter it was damp and crowded,only candlelight and no privacy. At daylight there was often no gas (at that time electricity had not been installed) but we had a small, old fashioned black range which we used to boil the kettle and we tried to cook meals -sometimes for three or four neighbours as well. Bacon pieces left overnight in a tin in the range oven, or a rice puddidng, have never been bettered.

My Mother went to church serivces every Sunday at the local Peoples Hall. My Father would take and we would, in the good weather, walk down to the Free Ferry and cross on one of the big ferry boats There was something magaical about them. Sometimes we walked under the river by the Tunnel, going down by the stairs which round and round but nearly ways taking the lift up - my Father had been in the 1914-1918 war and was badly wounded and still had shrapnel in his feet and legs. If his limbe were particularly troublesome he would sit with his feet in a bowl of warm water to soften them and to try to remove little pieces of shrapnel. It was on these
Sunday evenings that we would buy the sweet ration in a corner shop.

By my Mother's efforts we always had three soldiers from the local barracks to our house for Christmas tea. They were then invited to use our home as their home. When they were posted they introduced another soldier in their place. Failing that Mum went back to the Salvation Army and asked for another soldier or even two. I can well remember some of them; some were quite young and like big brothers to me. What became of them? I would love to know. Some went to the gun posts in the Thames, others were posted aborad. One, Andy, became a prisoner of the Japanese and when repatriated came to see us. He was a walking skeleton of his old self and did not survive but is remembered with love. I was evacuated to his home but that is another story.

When Tate and Lyles sugar factory was bombed they say it was a curtain of rats jumping and falling into the Thames. For us on the south side of the river it was a different story. Lots of people wandering along the streets. Opposite to our home a small council estate had been built on a plum orchard just before the outbreak of war, many people living there had relations and friends on the north side and it was these folk who were walking the streets to relations and friends. One old man had saved and was carrying a wooden kitchen chair. Nothing would make him leave that chair; a cup of tea and still he clung to it. He went on his way dirty, cut, blooded and bedraggled. What became of him?

School wasa problem and the only time I can remember going was before the war when we each had a little bed and an hours sleep in the afternoons. To know our beds, pegs etc. we had a little picture tied to the article, mine was a bucket! I wanted something pretty. At one time a group of 6-7 childlren of various ages met in the home of a teacher - a kind lady. I do not think we learnt much but for a short while it was a happy time.

One last story, my Mother worked at a First Aid Post and saw some horrible things. My eldest sister (eleven years older than me) worked in an aircraft factory, my brother , by this time, was away at the war. My younger sister worked and did not come home for lunch but my elder sister did and it took her fifteen minutes each way to and from work so dinner was on the table at 12.15. We just kept out of her way whilst she ate and tidied up and was away again at 12.45. Sometimes a friend came home with her and the two memories of thse days are -my sister had a ladder in her stockings and in her rush to get back to work the ladder was sewn up but to her leg. The other involved the friend. They were cycling back to wwork down a small hill with a twist at the bottom before going up the other side, known locally as Birds Nest Hollow, when the friends front wheel came off She landed on the bonnet of a rare, in those days, car but was declared fit and they both went back to work. The parts of the planes had to be built- the war effort depended on them.

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