大象传媒

It must have been late 1939, I was 4 and a half and my brother Albert six, when we were taken to paragon Station, Hull to catch the train which would take us into the country as evacuees. There were lots of other children and their mums and dads in the station, parents looking worried and the kids looking at the trains thinking it was a great adventure. Our father worked as a labourer for Recketts, they lived on Garden Village in Hull, which was an estate created for the workers by the firm.
Our Mam came with us on the train to a village called Carlton, near Goole. We were put into the temporary care of an old lady called Mrs Smith, Mam returned home, but was so worried about us she came back withoout our fathers knowledge to see us a few days later. Hiding behind the outbuildings she peeped at us through the kitchen window. Mrs Smith as arranged, held us up to look at the trees after we had been bathed. We never knew Mam was there, she didn't want to upset us. It must have been very hard for her to go back to Hull alone.
A few weeks later we were moved into the home of an Irish labourer. This was the dirtiest house we had ever seen, chickens on the table and muck everywhere! The only thing the father cared about was his concertina, which was kept on a high shelf away from the chicken droppings.

Mam or Dad must have complained because we got moved again, this time to a terraced house in the village, with a family called Sykes. This place was cleaner, they had two children about our age, who during the time we where there, damaged or broke all our toys, we could never play with theirs! We were not looked after as far as personal hygene was concerned. I remember Mam coming to visit and taking us for a walk so she could clean us up using her hanky (spitting on it to rub our faces clean) and cutting our finger nails, combing our hair etc. Our parents decided then to take us back to Hull
It must have been around the begining of 1942 when we came home. The raids on Hull were very bad at this time, Mam and Dad wanted us to be moved to another evacuee home as soon as possible.
Eventually we were allocated a place in the beautiful village of South Dalton near Beverley. The first place we went to was the home of Mr and Mrs Boddy, he as a joiner for the Hotham Estate which Dalton is part of. They were lovely people who looked after us very well. We would have stayed there I expect for the rest of the war but for the fact that I was extremely home sick. I cried for days on end. It was thought that I would be better if I was with a larger group of children, so again we were moved, this time further up the village, to the home of Col. and Mrs Godsell. This house took in 4-5 evacuees, cared for by the family nanny, Nanny Brown, a wonderful lady who knew how to look after little boys and keep them in check.
The house was run on the old lines, children in the nursery, food strictly rationed even the treats. Pocket money was earned by doing jobs then put into the bank, you never got to spend it! I was the youngest, my older brother got to do far more than me, but I still managed to tag along on most of the daft tricks the evacuees and village lads got up to. These were happy years, even though you could hear the bombs and see the fires in Hull fifteen or so miles away, on a night from our bedroom window.
The Colonel was a hunting man andwe were taught to carry game and be of use when he went shooting with his two black labradors. I was so small the game bag trailed along the floor when I carried it. Sometimes our parents would come up to visit and take home a rabbit or we would send one on the bus wrapped in news paper, this as a great treat as meat was in very short supply. We were brought up by the Godsells as their own boys had been, fairly but strictly. We thought the sons were real men, one an officer in the Army, the other an officer in the Navy. They were actually only 20 or so!
I often go back to the village with my wife and show her were we played footie with live Mills Bomb!! or were we threw coloured flares into the village pond and turned the duck pink. As kids we had a good time, we helped to collect metal to build new planes, went Tattie (potato) picking and went to school as normal. One of our favourite tricks was to watch all the soldiers who where billetted in the area courting the local girls. There was the Free French, Polish, French Canadians and best of all the Americans, who gave us candy if we stopped following them!!
I cannot remember exactly when we came home, it was before the hostilities finished. Hull was a mess,the centre very badly damaged, street after street of bombed out houses. My own parents were bombed out of two houses and with the little they had were now trying to make a new home for us in Laburnam Avenue, Garden Village. Luckily my Mam always had things organised so a suitcase of food and clothes always went with her into the air-raid shelter, when they were bombed they at least had those things left! Bombs werestill falling on Hull when we came back but not for long.
I can remember the first Bonfire Night after it was over, no shortage of material for the fire, We played on those bomb-sites for years before they were eventually cleared and new buildings put up.
It was a sad time, a hard time, but I remember how fortunate I was to live in Dalton and be brought up for about four years in such a happy place, and to come home to my Mam and Dad.

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