Childhood Memories of Mary Starmer (nee Davis)

The following is an extract of the full story which can be found in the attached PDF file.

After a severe attack of whooping cough I went away convalescence, staying in Hove - with the only really well-off members of my mother's family. They were a large catholic family, originally from Southern Ireland. I was six when I returned home from convalescence in September 1939 to resume school. I discovered the entire school had been evacuated with only four left (two boys and two girls). The other girls' mother organised half day lessons for the four of us. Eventually the council rounded us up and we were evacuated by coach to Ide Hill in Kent, only about twenty miles away from home. Ide Hill is next door to Biggin Hill. We all know what went on at Biggin Hill during the war - one of the main aerodromes for fighter planes!

An elderly lady took in we two girls, nine and six years old but she could not cope, especially when apparently I started wetting the bed. We were passed on to a family that had four girls of their own. We mostly slept five to a bed: Three at the top and two at the bottom. I can't remember much from this time but one day we were chased by a bull when the eldest girl was collecting a fresh willow branch - used to hit her own girls - not we evacuees.

In the early days of war, prior to food rationing, my mother occasionally sent bacon, butter etc. but we never saw or tasted it! My parents visited and learnt a few more things e.g. I had to wash my own hair but I was only six years old. They reported back to the other girl's parents who came to take her home - a few weeks later, I was also collected.

Then in June 1940, after the evacuation at Dunkirk, things became rather worrying:- I was sent to stay with my father's brother's mother-in-law in New Duston, Northamptonshire. My mother took me up to London (I now know it was St Pancras). I was put into the charge of the train guard and travelled in the guard's van, supposedly direct to Northampton but I had to change trains! The guard told me to take my little case and follow the crowd - I was only just seven years old! I had to descend to a tunnel under the tracks to cross to another platform - I was very scared on my own and never having seen these tunnels before. I stayed at this, my fourth home, for over a year. One thing I remember vividly is that every Friday night my hair was washed. I washed my own white socks and had to drink a dose of Senna pods from a cup - good for working the digestive systems. Now Senna pods mixture looks exactly like a cup of tea. To this day, I have NEVER drunk tea!

A few months later, a lorry drew up in the village crammed with young children from a London school wanting foster parents and my distant relative kindly tried to take in a playmate for me. Sally, aged five, was one of the few still left to be chosen. This would be late autumn 1940. One day Sally and myself were waiting to cross the main road through the village. I had been asked to take a note to an address completely at the other end of the village and upon completion would be given a 1d for running the errand. We were going to collect the 1d and I was pushing my doll in a pram (which my parents had sent me for Christmas) when I heard Sally scream. I looked around and then I was knocked down by a lorry! She saw it - I did not. A neighbour carried me indoors and put me onto the settee. This was the end of March 1941. I remember asking about my dolls pram - was it OK? My main injuries were my left knee and internal bleeding. There was no NHS in those days and anyway, I was an evacuee. The lorry load of children also brought the Headmaster and his wife - the latter used to be a nurse and she was called in to look at me. She bound up my knee and gave me what years later I realized were sanitary pads. My first day up was May third, my birthday. Then I learnt to walk and climb stairs again with my leg being hit with a cane from below because I did not bend it. Sally was at school alternatively morning or afternoon. Another time in June while I was getting better, Sally and I were waiting to cross this main road again when I realised she was transfixed and looking up the road at an approaching lorry driven slowly. The driver stopped, got down from the cab whilst Sally ran up the road shouting "Daddy"! "Daddy"! So Sally was taken back to her real home in London. Eventually I returned to school for the last week of term which was the end of July. It was about a mile's walk away, where we had lessons in a chapel, sitting in the pews. I sat at the back, spending most of my time making little mats from fluff and bobbles pulled from my jumpers. I remember one day a visiting teacher and inspector took a few of us into the chapel office where we sat around a table. She read poetry and asked us to write a poem. I remember that mine was about crocuses. So began my love of poetry.

Whilst staying in New Duston, I had three cousins in the same village all younger than me, and Sally was also younger than me. Any scrape we got into - the worst being a cushion fight which resulted in hundreds of feathers everywhere - I got the blame, as I was the eldest.

A few weeks later, bombing subsided. My parents had me home for a break in the school holidays. While I was at home, Mrs Callow wrote that she did not want me any more - so I stayed at home, in Kent.

My mother then found she was expecting a surprise baby which was born in November 1941. My father, who was a lift engineer, had a new mate to train and coincidently his granddaughter was staying throughout the war with her grandmother in Old Duston, only three miles away from where I had spent the previous year in New Duston! By now I was eight and off on the train again. I stayed with Mrs Welch, who was a lovely lady. The only snag being the bowls of split pea soup, lentil soup and lumpy porridge she gave us - I have not touched any since! Years later, when we had the shop and Post Office, we mainly sold cards. We inherited a good name for really cheap cards and built upon it. One year I kept records which showed that sales averaged a hundred cards a day plus Christmas boxes and packets. It wasn't until years later I realised that, when choosing cards for resale in the shop, I never purchased cards which were mainly green, orange or yellow - the colours of split pea and lentil soups deliberately avoided! It was a situation like the tea and Senna pods.

I went to the local school. My mother wrote to me, whilst I was in Old Duston, to name my baby sister. I wrote back giving the names of two friends; Sylvia and Enid. My sister's middle name was Enid - she never forgave me! I returned home in 1942.

About a year after the road accident, my legs went black! I saw a doctor and specialist and began attending Great Ormond Street Hospital for treatment. The accident had also upset my nerves and gave me a nervous tic and I was very restless. The hospital ordered bed rest. They ordered several spells of staying in bed plus repeat visits to Great Ormond Street Hospital covering most of the following years.

One time, returning to school after bed rest, the class were quoting Hiawatha which had been read to them and they were taught to recite. It was a horrible, horrible sensation - not knowing what was going on - everything was above my head.