Ouch! What a lousy war for the nitwits

NEARLY 80 years ago, millions of children were evacuated along with expectant mothers and the disabled to places of safety. There had been rumours of war for some time, and on September 1, 1939, we evacuees from metropolitan Essex travelled to Dagenham Dock, boarded the Royal Daffodil and sailed around East Anglia to Norfolk. We were billeted in a school for three days while the authorities decided what to do with us. We were like sardines, sleeping on straw mattresses and covered with Army blankets. Many caught head lice and scabies. I remember standing at a teacher’s desk, looking at a sheet of newspaper, with my neck bent while Miss yanked a fine tooth comb through my unclean hair. Lice dropped onto the newspaper. I saw more dots and commas where the journalist never intended them to be. The newspaper was then rolled into a ball and I moved along to be treated by Nitty Norah. She applied a foul-smelling liquid to our heads, then washed our hair. fast forward two years, and I was living in a Gloucestershire village, watching two girls having their lousy heads treated by the school nurse. I chuckled to myself because my head was clean. I was only ten, but life was good. Then, without warning, my mood changed. Someone boxed my ears. Dazed, I looked into the headmaster’s face. ‘That’s for not paying attention,’ he grunted.

Olive Day, Rochester, Kent.