Stories of Dorset and London

This is the story of Christina Wade who was born in 1935 and lived in Lewisham, south east London.

My sister was 9 years older than me and when war broke out and evacuation began, she was evacuated to Dorset. I stayed at home with my parents, living in New Cross, Lewisham. We had an Anderson shelter in the garden and when the bombing raids started, we used to sleep in the garden in our shelter. One of my earliest memories is coming out of the shelter in the garden to a very red sky and this was when Surrey Docks was hit, the start of the Blitz.

Attacks then were frequent and our house was bombed, we lost our home and our possessions. My sister was in Porton, Dorset and the whole family then moved to a cottage there.

The locals were very unhappy that we had moved there from London and refused to sell us any food. It was quite desperate and we were very hungry. My mother approached a local farmer and he sold us food, but it turned out to be manglewurzels (cattle feed). One day there was a knock at the door and a group of soldiers had come looking for food. We had very little but said we could share what we had, 'you are Londoners', they said. They had knocked at other doors in the village but turned away at every one. This was a turning point for us and after that the soldiers repaid our kindness by bringing food from the camp, as they went past they would throw it into the garden and on one occasion one of them arrived with a whole string of sausages tied around his waist.

However ,this wasn't to last - the soldiers moved away and the villagers were even more unfriendly, having seen us get help from the soldiers. So my mother decided she would rather face the Germans than the inhospitality of the locals and the family moved back to Lewisham at the time of the Doodlebugs. I remember five hits in Blessington Street.

My sister was old enough to work and was a switchboard operator at Mosers in the High Street - there was a direct hit and my sister lost 32 colleagues. Amazingly, she survived, with only a small scratch, However she was badly traumatised and had eventually to seek help for her nerves.

I remember VE day, my mother took me to Trafalgar Square. It remains very vivid in my memory, the celebration and all the service men from so many different countries, joining in the celebration.