Greta Romaine, who was evacuated during the war with cousin June to Natland Mill Beck, Kendal, to live with her Auntie Olive, recalls an active childhood

 

I HAVE come to realise that living in Kendal in wartime must have given us a very healthy lifestyle as I can’t remember any illness in those five years.

We had a lot of exercise each day beginning with the walk to school, then playground games at break times and walking home afternoons.

When weather permitted we were outdoors after tea playing in the lane until bedtime at 8 o’clock.

We certainly had a good night’s sleep in our cosy feather beds, with rubber hot water bottles on cold nights.

With rationing governing our intake of sugar and fat, this may have been a blessing in disguise and served us well in our later years – no chance of us becoming overweight!

Sweets were even rationed and chocolate scarce. I was lucky having an uncle in the RAF, who saved his sweet coupons for us and sent parcels of chocolate.

What excitement when they arrived but we had to make them last.

To save our sugar ration, most people and even children stopped having sugar in their tea. We did have a little in our hot cups of Bourneville cocoa, the greatest ‘pick me up’ of the time, especially when we got frozen fingertips playing in the snow.

We had lovely roaring fires that kept us glowing and smiling except for when my toast had a habit of falling off the toasting fork and ending up as cinders in the flames.

It was all good fun!