Another day another dollar!

Good Friday and another day of April showers, what's the song again, oh yes Though April showers may come your way, they bring the flowers that bloom in may, well at this rate we should have a bloomin' marvellous display for the rest of the summer but what's the bet we'll be disappointed again.  Oh well look on the bright side wherever that might be. Seeing the train stuck in snowdrifts on television the other day reminded me of when that happened to me.

I wonder if there is anyone anywhere who remembers a train journey from Plymouth to Edinburgh in January 1940 which got stuck in a snow drift for hours and hours.  No heating, no water, and eventually no coal - it was a steam train in those days - to get it going again and the train sent to get us out got stuck too.  We eventually reached Edinburgh Caledonian station I think after 32 hours.  Now that's the memory I have but of course I was only 9 at the time so that might be a mismemory.  I do remember my Mother putting me in a hot bath as soon as we got home, but the pipes burst because of the icy conditions.

Looking back I had quite an adventurous time during the war. Moving from place to place, new schools, strange dialects, learning to get on with new friends, different houses, lots of journeys, some on trains with blue lights and blacked out windows,
Didn't know where we were until we got there. First Weymouth, then back to Edinburgh next off to Invergordon - my Dad was in the navy and was sent to the cottage hospital to help turn it into a naval establishment.

Couldn't believe it when my teacher from South Morningside School in Edinburgh appeared as a VAD (a nursing auxiliary ).  We only went to school for half a day because there wasn't room for all us naval children in a small school and the locals as well.  While I was there the Germans bombed the oil tanks and the oil ran down onto the railway line so that whenever a train passed and the embers from the firebox sparked out onto the embankment, it caught fire so they had to stop the trains until all the oil could be removed. Oh gosh there I go blethering on, just don't know when to stop do I, but I will now so that's your lot.