Hanna Ramras - January 26, 2008
Arriving in England
But our plane was a KLM plane--no jets, propellers. Very rough weather but I was ill and a lot of us were. It was a very long flight to Amsterdam where we refueled and then we took off again and we landed in England at Croydon Airport. Croydon Airport is a small airport outside of London and at Croydon Airport I was picked up by a middle aged couple called Mr. and Mrs. Style whom I learned to call aunt and uncle later. They couldn't speak to me, I couldn't speak to them and uh, we got in the car and I continued to be very ill. And uh, it was quite a long journey from Croydon to Swanage on the southeast coast of England--Dorset is the country. And when we arrived in, in Swanage, a very nice house and it was very late, about two o'clock in the morning--there was a governess waiting to take charge of me and she put me to bed and she gave me some milk to drink and I continued to be very ill throughout the whole night. The next morning the doctor was there and she explained to Mrs. Style that, "This child is in shock. She's uh, just exhausted. She needs to be put to sleep with something because she can't fall asleep alone." And the doctor did what he had to do. I must have slept for a long time. And Mr. and Mrs. Style didn't have a family--they had no children and the governess took care of me.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn