I am Sally, and I would like to tell you a little about myself.
I was born at West Drayton, Middlesex on the 28th April, 1928. My first few years I cannot tell you much about, as I was an only child and my parents are both deceased, so I have no one I can turn to for information.
We move to Croydon, Surrey when I was about 5 years old. We lived in rented accommodation for a while and then we moved into a Council Flat in West Croydon, where I lived until I married Frank. My childhood was quite uneventful, except for losing my Dad when I was eight years old. He died in Mayday hospital from an abscess on the lung, which probably today would be called cancer.
After the death of my father my mother had to do Domestic work as money in those days was very tight, the pension being very small, and I seemed to spend more time with my mother's sister, Auntie Elsie, that I did at my own home. This I didn't mind as she had three children, Jimmy, Richard and Jean, whom I used to help look after.
My school days were not the happiest of my life, as I was always being picked on for being an only child and I don't know why, also I suffered from an hereditary skin disease inherited from my mother's side of the family and for which they could find no cure, (one of my daughters also suffers from the same thing.) And as I had this skin disease I always wore long sleeves and would never go swimming, and to this day I still cannot swim. You can imagine how the kids used to pick on me. Other than that I never suffered any serious illness and to this day I still favour good health. Well lets move on now.
When I was eleven World War 2 started, and soon after that we were evacuated. I went to a small village called Hankham in Sussex, where I lived on a farm. Mr & Mrs. Lynch who took me in with two other children, Hilda & Ronnie, were very nice and I really enjoyed it there, but then I began to get homesick and after a while my mother came and took me home, I was home for a few weeks and then I was evacuated again to Pevensey Bay in Sussex. This was right on the sea front and very nice, but again the homesickness bug got me and home I came again. This was right in the middle of the Blitz. Every household in those days was issued with an Anderson Air Raid Shelter. This was a galvanized iron sort of shed that you had to dig a 6ft hole in the garden and sink this into it, and then cover it with the earth you had dug out to make the hole. In this we put bunks and there we slept every night for about 3 months. The bombing was very frightening some nights, and you never knew what you would find the next morning.