Joyce_building
Joyce
When I came to England from Scotland, the children took the mickey out of me because I had a funny Glaswegian accent. I had to work really hard to roll my R’s so I could fit in.
Journey
When I was only 7 years old, in the Second World War, my home was bombed. We couldn’t stay at home that night, so we had to go to the school hall. I thought it was great fun having breakfast in school with all the other people around me.
After that, every day when we went to school, we had to take a packed suitcase to practise for when we were to be evacuated. We walked to the train station with our suitcases, and we would wave at the train as it moved off, then we walked back to school.
One day, we got handed a carrier bag with a tin of milk, a slab of chocolate, some sugar, butter and spam. The teacher said: ‘Children, get your suitcase, bring your carrier bag and line up, we are going to the train station’.
So off we went. But this time the teacher told us to get on the train. We didn’t understand what was happening. The train started to move, and we were off to the countryside! We were evacuated to the country…to Kent…
That day, my Mum came to pick me up from school, but of course I wasn’t there. She saw a notice on the school gate that the children had been evacuated. She had not been told we were going that day, and she had no idea of where we were going to be so she was upset and worried about us.
But we thought it was a wonderful adventure and had great fun on the train.
Contribution to Newham
Me and my husband used to run ‘Smiths Off license’ on the end of Thorp Road.
It was a big shop and we were very proud of it.
We got to know our customers they were very friendly.
