Evacuees, Episode 6
Created | Updated Aug 19, 2008
For newcomers, previous episodes of this daily serial can be found at
A39606311, A39683974, A39716706 and A39769212.
Sonny would never forget the first day of spring – the 21st of March 1946. He was preparing a fire in the living room fireplace. That might seem like a strange thing for a 4 year old to be undertaking, but it is how he remembered the occasion whenever he subsequently recalled it. Just as people alive in November 1963 know exactly what they were doing when they heard that JFK had been shot or in 1972 when Elvis died, 1980 when John Lennon was shot, August 31st 1997 when Princess Diana died or 11th September 2001, so Sonny remembers every detail of that spring morning. It was his earliest coherent memory. He was kneeling in front of the hearth, clearing out ashes and putting screwed up newspaper in the grate. He could hear what he took to be the sound of lambs bleating in the nearby fields. Then he heard the groaning of the hinges on the doorway to the staircase as his grandmother came down stairs.
“Can you hear that baby crying up there?” she asked
“What baby?” he said, puzzled. ”I thought it was the lambs.”
“Lambs? There aren’t any lambs! That’s your new baby sister.”
It was then that he remembered having been woken up when his mother, who slept in the bed next to his, had got up and seemed to be getting dressed. She must have reassured him with some appropriate words and an admonition to “go back to sleep.” She must have gone to the next room, where his grandmother slept and where, some hours later, his sister was born.
The following winter turned out to be one of the worst for many years. Worse even than the first 3 winters of the war. Indeed, the early months of 1947 are notorious for the severity of the weather. Snow began to fall on boxing-day 1946 and within days had reached a depth of several feet. Before that, Sonny, his mother and grandmother and 9 month-old Rosemary had their traditional Christmas. Nothing like modern Christmas celebrations due in part to their lack of means and in part to “post war austerity” which meant that many of the things that children take for granted now were simply not available even had Sonny’s family been able to afford them.
Sonny had helped his mother to make their own decorations from sweet papers saved from previous years, twisted into a bow shape and tied onto a length of thread. They used strips of gummed coloured paper to make paper chains. And his mother sewed lengths of crepe paper together. White sewed to green and then twisted produced a colourful chain. In later years there would be manufactured chains, balls and bells from Woolworths, all made from coloured tissue paper. And of course, there would be holly and mistletoe and strips of tinsel.
Sonny and Rosemary hung socks on the ends of their beds and they would be filled with chocolate coins, an orange, an apple and some small toy. Somehow presents would have been afforded – many courtesy of the family of a fellow crew member of Sonny’s dead father. His mother made a Christmas cake, puddings and mince pies. For dinner they had a cockerel – raised, killed and plucked at home!
Snow was piled in a great drift against their windows making the already ill-lit room even darker. Deliveries by conventional transport were impossible. One of the farmers brought basics to the house on horse back. There were no helicopters to make emergency food drops back then. The thaw, when it eventually came late in March, caused widespread flooding. The stream at The Gate became a muddy red torrent and overflowed its banks.
The summer that followed was as hot as the winter had been cold. Their water supply dried to a trickle taking several hours to fill a single bucket. Grass in the meadows, instead of becoming fresh and green after the hay had been gathered in became straw coloured. Sonny and his sister Rosemary spent hours outside and became the colour of ripe hazelnuts. Ivy and her mother found the heat enervating and were glad to spend hours in the cool of the cottage.
A39606311, A39683974, A39716706 and A39769212.
Sonny would never forget the first day of spring – the 21st of March 1946. He was preparing a fire in the living room fireplace. That might seem like a strange thing for a 4 year old to be undertaking, but it is how he remembered the occasion whenever he subsequently recalled it. Just as people alive in November 1963 know exactly what they were doing when they heard that JFK had been shot or in 1972 when Elvis died, 1980 when John Lennon was shot, August 31st 1997 when Princess Diana died or 11th September 2001, so Sonny remembers every detail of that spring morning. It was his earliest coherent memory. He was kneeling in front of the hearth, clearing out ashes and putting screwed up newspaper in the grate. He could hear what he took to be the sound of lambs bleating in the nearby fields. Then he heard the groaning of the hinges on the doorway to the staircase as his grandmother came down stairs.
“Can you hear that baby crying up there?” she asked
“What baby?” he said, puzzled. ”I thought it was the lambs.”
“Lambs? There aren’t any lambs! That’s your new baby sister.”
It was then that he remembered having been woken up when his mother, who slept in the bed next to his, had got up and seemed to be getting dressed. She must have reassured him with some appropriate words and an admonition to “go back to sleep.” She must have gone to the next room, where his grandmother slept and where, some hours later, his sister was born.
The following winter turned out to be one of the worst for many years. Worse even than the first 3 winters of the war. Indeed, the early months of 1947 are notorious for the severity of the weather. Snow began to fall on boxing-day 1946 and within days had reached a depth of several feet. Before that, Sonny, his mother and grandmother and 9 month-old Rosemary had their traditional Christmas. Nothing like modern Christmas celebrations due in part to their lack of means and in part to “post war austerity” which meant that many of the things that children take for granted now were simply not available even had Sonny’s family been able to afford them.
Sonny had helped his mother to make their own decorations from sweet papers saved from previous years, twisted into a bow shape and tied onto a length of thread. They used strips of gummed coloured paper to make paper chains. And his mother sewed lengths of crepe paper together. White sewed to green and then twisted produced a colourful chain. In later years there would be manufactured chains, balls and bells from Woolworths, all made from coloured tissue paper. And of course, there would be holly and mistletoe and strips of tinsel.
Sonny and Rosemary hung socks on the ends of their beds and they would be filled with chocolate coins, an orange, an apple and some small toy. Somehow presents would have been afforded – many courtesy of the family of a fellow crew member of Sonny’s dead father. His mother made a Christmas cake, puddings and mince pies. For dinner they had a cockerel – raised, killed and plucked at home!
Snow was piled in a great drift against their windows making the already ill-lit room even darker. Deliveries by conventional transport were impossible. One of the farmers brought basics to the house on horse back. There were no helicopters to make emergency food drops back then. The thaw, when it eventually came late in March, caused widespread flooding. The stream at The Gate became a muddy red torrent and overflowed its banks.
The summer that followed was as hot as the winter had been cold. Their water supply dried to a trickle taking several hours to fill a single bucket. Grass in the meadows, instead of becoming fresh and green after the hay had been gathered in became straw coloured. Sonny and his sister Rosemary spent hours outside and became the colour of ripe hazelnuts. Ivy and her mother found the heat enervating and were glad to spend hours in the cool of the cottage.
