Mara's Culleton's Story
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Mara's Culleton's Story |
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I understand that the evacuees of London marched in the Remembrance Day Parade. They wore their brown labels as they had done on that fateful day in September, sixty-one years ago. It is always a source of amazement to me how the children of war are overlooked by everybody.
We lost our childhood in that war, and I wrote to 10 Downing Street asking for reparations. The reply was polite but negative. As I live in Canada the British government adds insult to injury by paying us a pittance of the British Pension, although I understand in the United States you get the full amount. No end of people have tried to make the government put us on a par with British Ex-pats. residing in other countries, but so far there has been no success. Sadly my treatment as an evacuee was worse than yours. Our caregivers didn't just call us names, they were physically abusive, or at least he was and she stood by silently. We were three children. My oldest brother was eight, I was six and my younger brother was four. The Marshall name will be etched in my memory until the day I die. My oldest brother died at the age of twelve as a result of an injury acquired during our evacuation. My family was devastated, particularly my parents. My Dad who was with the BEF(British Expeditionary Force) was reported missing at Dunkirk, and my mother was in the thick of the London blitz with three younger children. Fortunately, he returned home and paid an unexpected visit to his three older children in Dorchester. He was appalled when he saw the evidence of our abuse and took us back to London without collecting our belongings, but not before he took a round out the Headmistress for not reporting these savages that called themselves foster parents. We never left London again. We came out of the shelter everyday to see the air raid wardens going through the rubble, and carrying out the bodies wrapped in sheets. Like you we saw London burning. We lived in the West End but the Germans were after the Rolls Royce Factory which was now making airplane engines. It was several miles away as the crow flies, but they dropped land mines and every conceivable weapon but never hit it. They kept hitting a big church nearby. Eventually, they stopped rebuilding the church and let it stand until the war was over. My Mother was sent calling up papers. She marched the six of us to the War Office and showed them what she had received in the mail. They were hysterical and after giving us a wonderful tea with chocolate biscuits and pastries, they apologized profusely, still laughing their heads off. I saw the prisoners of war return, both from Japan and Germany. Even at the tender age of eleven, I was appalled at their appearance. Throughout the war, when it was possible to go to school I travelled to Chelsea. I saw the burned airman on their way by bus to Roehampton for McIndoe to work his miracles. Even at that, some were so disfigured I found it very hard to sit next to them on the bus. I felt so guilty about this for years. And then, my Dad brought home the books of photographs on the concentration camps. We were speechless at man's inhumanity to man. As much as I cried, my Dad made us sit through it so that we never forgot. Inasmuch as we were supposed to instantly trade the hatred we had for the Germans of that generation, when the war ended, for thoughts of kinship and generosity of spirit I found it hard and still find it impossible to feel compassionate toward German children, whom I know, were in many cases suffering the same horrors we suffered in that war. I have no magic wand to erase these thoughts from my head when I stand at the Cenotaph every Remembrance Day and see the veterans faces, recalling that these men were eighteen, nineteen or twenty when they left to fight for their country. If the Jews can ever forgive them, then I suppose I must try, but I suspect I will leave this earth with these feelings intact. War is never a single incident in history but will live with those of us who experienced it ad infinitum. I am by the way a writer. I worked on Fleet Street in my early days and although I am no longer a journalist, I still write the odd article. Most of my writing nowadays is in other areas, nevertheless, I have recorded my own experience. Mara.
My parents sent me to a day school when I was three and a half years of age, located in the Duke of Norfolk's grounds, a heavenly acreage of tranquility surrounded by a twelve-foot wall that enclosed the new Carmelite Convent in one corner and the old Convent, now converted to a school, in the other corner. The grounds were magnificent. In winter we had classes inside the cloisters. In summer, weather permitting, our books were taken out onto the grass and under the s hade of giant oak trees, with only the distraction of birdsong, we learned our lessons. At twelve noon, the youthful novices in their white robes came over from the Convent to sing the Angelus and escort us to lunch. Fresh faced young women who sounded like a band of angels then returned to the Convent to perform mundane tasks allotted them before they took their final vows of (they never spoke to a living sou l or saw the outside world again) and receive the veil. After lunch or at recess we helped the gardeners plant bulbs. Day after day for three years in the calm of these serene surroundings we could not help b ut cultivate a facade of gentle conduct, although we were probably just as mischievous as any children in any circumstances.
Just as the winter term was due to begin, WW II was declared on September 3rd. 1939 and our halcyon days ended abruptly.
That same day the evacuation of the children of London began. We were placed on a train with hundreds of other children and sent to the countryside of England with labels tied to the lapels of our blazers for identification in case the train got bombed. We jostled each other to get to the carriage window to catch a last glimpse of our parents as the train left the station. I was six years old , and my brothers were eight and four respectively. We had never been away from our parents until that moment. We had no idea where we were going or what was going to happen to us. An hour or so into the journey we were given brown paper bags containing sandwiches and an apple. Our Headmistress appeared in the carriage doorway and told us that our destination would be Dorset (Thomas Hardy country) and that we would be boarded at a local school. This plan never materialized because there wasn't a school big enough to house us all, so we were farmed out to local people.
Some of us were lucky with our temporary caregivers and some of us weren't. We were among the latter. By now my Dad had enlisted in the army and on a brief leave before disembarking for overseas, he paid us an impromptu visit during school hours. The physical abuse my older brother and I had suffered was clearly visible. He took all three of us to the station without even allowing us to collect our belongings, but not before he almost took the roof off the school telling the headmistress exactly what he thought of her.
We returned to our home in London just in time for Hitler to start bombing us in earnest. Nighttime raids were the most consistent. I had three prayers, not to die in my sleep (I would try to stay awake until the all clear sounded); not to be buried alive and finally never having to dig in the rubble for my family. These were my nightly prayers until the Blitz ended.
Daily I watched bodies wrapped in sheets being taken out of bombed buildings that were there the night before with live people in them. We attended school sporadically until the school was bombed, and then we were home schooled by reading to each other and teaching simple sums to our three younger siblings.
Rationing was brutal and food was scarce so we were often hungry, but all meals took place at the dining room table. While we sat waiting to be served, we listened to the progress of the war on the radio. After the news, the lists of the missing and the dead were read out by Alvar Liddell the BBC (British Broadcasting Corp.) newscaster.
After the disaster of Dunkirk, we were informed that my Dad was missing. We didn't believe the telegram, following my mother's resolve. We still listened in complete silence everyday to the missing and the dead newscast. We put the blackout curtains up at our windows every night, unlocked our front doors and did what the Civil Defence Workers told us to.
This war had made adults out of small children as we listened in despair to the conversations around us. Exotic geographical locations became as well known as the names we were given as we unwittingly learned the map of Europe by recurring familiarity.
By the time Pearl Harbour was bombed and the Americans joined us to fight this war, we were overjoyed. They gave up there leave time to throw parties for us at the Milo Club (a former private club in Kensington) where we were given such treasures as pencils with erasers on the tip (an unknown commodity in the UK in wartime.) These interludes and our interaction as children with these delightful young men remain above all else in my mind, some sixty years later and have been the catalyst for my everlasting kinship with the American people.
We continued through the war slipping into pubescence through a myriad of new, more murderous weapons, as the war progressed and it became more terrifying.
My Dad finally showed up having been hidden by a French family. He came back devastated by the death and destruction he had witnessed . While he stood in the Ocean with a fully loaded pack, waiting for the little boats to come along and pick him up, the Germans started to machine gun them. The British Expeditionary Force left the water to take cover. Many were killed or drowned. It turned out to be a dreadful tactical error made by the military brass. But his war wasn't over. He was sent to other places of war while his family tried to survive the Blitz. We were bombed out of our home twice. It was a nightmare.
I lost my beloved 12 year old brother in that war. My parents never recovered from his death. The other five children survived, and I became the eldest child in the family.
My Mum had gone shopping and left me in charge. Her words as she left were "Finish your homework, do not let the fire go out and take care of the younger ones." I casually agreed to all this and sat in a blue living room. Blue carpet, blue drapes, high backed moquette chairs (didn't half make your bare legs itch) working away on my algebra (which I hated) so it took me twice as long as it should. The others were playing happily around somewhere. All of a sudden I looked at the fireplace and there was no fire, only embers. I emptied the coal scuttle on, but nothing happened. I went and got some stuff (which I had seen Mrs.McCoy do) and threw it on the embers. Some of it spilled in the hearth and immediately burst into flames. It spread to the carpet. I ran to find the others and put them outside. My sister Rita screamed as she passed the hallway. Her screams were heard by a passing mailman who ran into the house. He picked up the coal scuttle ran and filled it with water and threw it into the fireplace. By this time the curtains had caught, but by then people appeared from everywhere and between them they put the fire out. My mother's lovely living room was destroyed, but everyone was safe. There were still some coal slack left in the scuttle. You should have seen the mess. I thought she's going to kill me when she gets home. She didn't and was only concerned that we were all right. I couldn't sleep in my own bed for many nights and had to sleep with my Mum until I got over it. Every time I closed my eyes I could see flames. She didn't even raise her voice to me. I think there must have been insurance because it was all put back a few weeks later as though nothing had happened. Mara.
The radio programme The Man in Black will live in my memory forever. We had been allowed back home although the doors wouldn't shut properly and were very loose. The slightest wind tore them open. One evening after an episode of this very scary program which I believe took place on a light house, my mother reminded me it was my turn to make the cocoa. As I Ioaded the cups and saucers on a tray the back door suddenly opened. I raced with the tray back to the safety of the living room, throwing the tray and china into the air, such was my fright. My mother raced to the door with a hammer convinced by my behaviour we had an intruder. One cup hit my brother and broke cutting him superficially. My mother realizing what had happened after calm was restored, threatened me with never being allowed to listen to the Man in Black again. By next week all was forgotten and I was seated in the armchair nearest the radio. Good job we had a lot of china. Mara
I was out last night with friends from Manchester. His Dad was the Chief of Police and on his way home after a long day and driving his Mark 5 Jag. (Police drove these in those days) he was flagged down by a vicar in a the village. The vicar told him there was a strange noise coming from the back garden. The very tired police chief went to investigate. He stood around the corner of the house in walled garden preparing himself with his L shaped flashlight and his truncheon. He heard a sound he couldn't identify. Best described as a grinding noise. His flashlight finally fell upon the culprit. It was a land mine attached by a parachute swinging back and forth in a tree. The chief cleared the area for half a mile around, and the bomb disposal squad dismantled it safely. Of course, it would have wiped out the area. The chief didn't get an early night, but he saved a lot of lives including his own. Mara
One night in the midst of a heavy raid of V1's or V2's a couple entered the shelter. The wife came in just behind her husband and as she did the blast lifted the hem of her skirt. While clutching her skirt with one hand she clapped her hand over her mouth with the other hand and she turned to leave. Her husband asked where she was going? She said in a stage whisper "I've forgotten my false teeth." He said, "Don't be ridiculous woman, it's bombs he's dropping out there, not sandwiches." Mara
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