- Contributed by
- West Sussex Library Service
- People in story:
- Barbara Martin
- Location of story:
- Berkshire
- Background to story:
- Civilian
- Article ID:
- A4440692
- Contributed on:
- 12 July 2005
“This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Chloe French from Crawley Library and has been added to the website on behalf of Barbara Martin with her permission and she fully understands the site’s terms and conditions”
Aged 10, I was evacuated to my mother’s elderly parents in Berkshire. As an only child I hated leaving my parents in London, where we lived in North Kensington.
A cousin of the same age was also living with our Grandparents and we shared a bedroom and attended the local schools (infant and then senior) together (not always agreeing!).
With so much talk now about recycling I am reminded that this is not a new thing. With “Dig for Victory” and “Make Do and Mend” among other ideas, we were encouraged to collect salvage (paper, card and glass bottles) to be recycled towards the war effort. Schools in particular were asked to help and ours was eager to “do our bit”. The children were asked to collect on Saturdays and an old cycle shed at school was earmarked to store our collection, a prize to be awarded at the end of the month to the class collecting the most.
Our Grandfather made a little two wheel cart from wooden fruit boxes and after we had completed our chores to help our Grandmother on Saturday morning (cleaning the front steps, polishing the cutlery and dusting) we would trundle off around the neighbours for salvage. We collected loads, especially brown glass bottles from one particular house, where we were told to come for more as there were plenty in the shed. After depositing our collection at school it was home to tell Nanny about our successful hoard. However, hearing about the bottles — and where - we were forbidden to go there again, and our collection looked very meagre. I can’t remember which class won the prize, but it wasn’t us.
The effort wasn’t repeated — something to do with transport and the shortage of petrol, so the dustman continued to collect the paper and bottles etc.
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