The War and Evacuation Part 3

Even though nothing was happening on the war front  we were reluctantly returned to Reading and my brother and I resumed our lives in Waylen Street.
 One Saturday in late spring 1940 on arrival in the woods I stood amazed on finding a carpet of blue and green beneath the trees, formed by masses of bluebells. I had never seen anything like it. Soon cyclists from London started arriving to pick the bluebells but we ‘old country folk’ looked at them with disdain for they left with great bunches of bluebells draped across the back of their bikes. The stems of the bluebells were tipped with white and we ‘old country dwellers’ knew the bulb would never bloom again once the centre (the white tip of the stem) had been pulled out. Bluebell time is still a very special time to me.
 In spring I found cowslips in the fields and sweet smelling primroses along the banks, catkins grew on some trees and the young leaves of trees created a green filigree against the sky.  Suddenly we were vying to report to anyone who cared to listen that we had heard the first cuckoo of spring.

 Robert Bridges, Poet Laureate, who had lived in Berkshire, wrote
 ‘Yet it was here we walked when ferns were springing
 And through the mossy bank shot bud and blade
 Here found in summer,  when the birds were singing
 A green and pleasant shade.’

 The woods and fields were harbours of peace in a stormy world and to me everything was new and I was eager to experience, explore and discover this new world which had opened up to me. I felt that I was the only person who had seen such jewels of nature.
 On the banks of a leaf shaded lane were the red berried cuckoo pint (Lords and Ladies) in amongst the hart's tongue and lady ferns growing along the banks. Buttercups, cowslips, bachelors button and cornflowers grew wild in the fields. White and pink roses flowered in June and July, and red campion, foxgloves, cow's parsley, meadow sweet  and red clover through the summer along with thistles and teasels.
 Winding itself freely everywhere during summer was the sweet scented cream and pink honeysuckle and later the travellers joy. Occasionally I was lucky enough to find violets and tiny pansies hiding themselves on banks beside the road. My explorations and enthusiasm was such that I would sometimes be stung by nettles and then have to search for a nearby dock leaf to ease the pain.
 On hot summer afternoons grasshoppers chirruped in the grasses while on the river the kingfishers darted from the bank or a tree stump, and dragon and damsel flies hovered and darted close to the water's surface. Midges hovered above the water and fish broke the surface for an easy meal and then disappeared down into the weeds. Pond skaters and water boatmen exercised past and sometimes real boatmen sculled by. 
 It was wonderful for there was always plenty to keep me occupied and sometimes in summer, while my brother spent the day fishing, I wandered along the riverbank and fields, while carefully avoiding the cow pats, and stopped occasionally to pick daisies for a daisy chain or examine something unusual.
 My father had shown me how to skim stones across the water so I practiced until I could bounce them several times. Willows overhung the river bank and in summer young people, many in uniform, hired punts and tied up along the bank for picnics and a few private moments underneath the curtaining fronds. 
 There were stiles and small bridges to cross or boggy patches to negotiate while trying to keep my shoes dry and clean. No one was there to prevent me climbing gates and trees or exploring the fields and hedgerows.
 Along the river bank rushes and wild iris grew and cattle browsed in the fields nearby and once in a while wandered down to drink in the sandy shallows where the bank had washed away. There I paddled in sand and gravel to cool my feet after a long walk and then found a suitable perch from which I could swing my legs and dry my feet before putting socks and shoes back on.
 The comma and the red admiral fluttered here and there and settled to bathe in the sunshine. Gnats hovered and swooped over the water and sometimes coming upon them suddenly found my face and arms being feasted on, making my return journey one of scratching at the itchy bumps.
 There was so much to see and learn. The locks were very pretty with gardens and tubs on either side full of colour, it being a competition amongst the lock-keepers for the tidiest and best tended lock. The lock-keepers were usually men too old for the armed services or the wives of young men who had gone off to fight.  They guided the boats into the lock until, so it seemed, not a scrap of space was left and the lock gates were closed, the lock filled with water, or emptied, and the boats continued on their way.
 Occasionally I found the fields strewn with strips of silver foil about the size of paper chains which I sometimes collected up to take home. This was the stuff called ‘window’ which was dropped to obstruct radar and no-one was supposed to know anything about but the children knew.
 Many of the fields about were filled with growing crops of wheat, barley and oats which rippled like waves at sea when the wind stroked them. Teasels, growing alongside the growing grain were fun to pick and throw until they stuck on someone’s jersey.
 When ripe the wheat fields provided places one could hide on a hot summer’s afternoon to doze or daydream whilst watching the clouds and birds pass overhead. At harvest these crops were heaped in stooks in the field waiting to be threshed and the straw built in to ricks and hay was spread out in the fields to dry. Ricks were fun to climb on and make little tunnels to hide in.
 At harvest-time after the farm workers reaped the fields in circles from the outside to the centre trapping rabbits in the centre. Men and boys with guns then spread out around the field to shoot the terrified rabbits as they made a dash to safety in the hedgerows.  Rabbit meat helped to add variety to the wartime dinner table.
 Throughout the war everyone was encouraged to dig for victory and those who did so for the first time found they enjoyed the taste of freshly picked vegetables providing the slugs hadn't got there first. As I have said Hector was a good gardener and turned much of the back garden over to salad in summer and vegetables in winter. We enjoyed freshly picked tomatoes, lettuce, radishes, spring onions, cucumber, peas and Scarlet runner beans in summer and cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, marrows and cabbage in winter. Many of us lived through those times know there is nothing quite like the taste of a garden fresh home grown vegetables and salad.
 In autumn we roamed the hedgerows gathering blackberries while gorging ourselves on them as we did so and, despite getting scratched when we tried to reach the largest berries at the top, returned with several baskets full of the fruit for Doris’s blackberry jelly and blackberry and apple pies, the smell of which is still a reminder of that time. 
 It was also a time when the ground in the woods was covered in cob and sweet chestnuts, acorns and seeds from the ash and sycamore which had spiralled down. Soon the trees were bare and the autumn sunlight could at last reach the bronze and gold leaves which covered the fallen harvest of nuts and seeds. A special delight was to search and find leaves which had lost their flesh and were now only a delicate tracery of lace.
 It felt wonderful to feel so free and I avoided contact with others by hiding until they had passed by and their voices had faded.  I had no watch but when I judged, from the position of the sun, the length of the shadows or the chill in the air, that it was getting late I would start back to meet my brother at a pre-arranged spot.

 Because I had been ill, visiting the cinema was another activity I was not allowed to undertake because Doris thought seeing something frightening might bring on a heart attack. Nevertheless if we had the funds we didn‘t tell her and went to the cinema on a Saturday afternoon. If a film was classed as an ‘A’ (children to be accompanied by an adult) we stood outside and asked a complete strangers to buy our ticket for us, would give them our money, and go in with them and then parted. To be safe I always asked an older woman to take me and the cinema employees just turned a blind eye to this.
 Throughout the year there was always something special to see or do and if all else failed there was always the market on market day where I climbed on the pens and examined the cattle, sheep and pigs and then wandered amongst the market stalls buying, if I had a penny, a raw carrot to chew on the way home.
 Sometimes I just wandered around Reading and on one such occasion discovered, on an ivy covered ruined wall in the Abbey, a stone inscribed with the words and music of ‘Summer is icumen in‘. Later at school we learnt the words and were told that the stone in the Abbey ruins was the first example found of written music. It is a sign of the times that when I visited Reading a few years ago the stone had been removed to the museum for safety.
 The river Kennet runs through Reading and leaning over bridges to watch it pass under bridge and disappear also proved an interesting past-time especially if there were ducks or swans and I had a few broken biscuits to feed them. In our walks in the countryside around Reading we had seen little of barrage balloons and ack ack guns and we were told little of events in London. It was a peaceful time and the war hardly seemed to touch us.
 We stayed with the family in Waylen Street for about 2 years and the only thing we really appreciated during our stay was the freedom we experienced at the weekends.