大象传媒

Story told by John Humphries to Wyn Briggs and aware of implications of putting story on the website.

I was 9 when I was evacuated from Bermondsey London to Burgess Hill early in 1940. In the previous September of 1939 my family had gone to Paddock Wood for the hop picking season and so I joined the rest of my class mates in January 1940.

My father was on war work and sent to Manchester at the docks. He was billeted with the comedian Jimmy Jewel's parents. Apparently his mother was a tartar and she ruled the roost. Rations were fairly small unfortunately at this household and he was glad to be moved nearer London after about 6 months.

My brother Jim and myself were billeted with Mr & Mrs Voice for 9 months. Unfortunately my brother was accused unjustly of making a pinhole in the black-out curtain and we had to move to a farm labourer's house. We didn't have a happy time there. After a year we were moved to a small farm where we lived with 2 spinsters and a batchelor. We were more or less used as farm labourers because we had to milk the cows, clear out the shed, and taking the horse round to collect the pig's food. On one occasion, my brother had a paper round, and I decided to help him as it was very cold and snow had fallen. When we returned ready for our breakfast, we still had to do the milking and farm work before we were fed and could go to school. Our clothes used to get so dirty, there were times when we played truant because we didn't want to go to school with smelly clothes.

One day going to the Catholic school in Burgess Hill I found a 拢1 note. I handed it in to the teacher and then I was very embarrassed when at assembly they said what an honest boy I was! I found out afterwards that it belonged to a local boy whose widowed father had given it to him for shopping. I was called in to the headmaster's study to see him and another local headmaster. My reward was 2 shillings from each man.

At the end of 1942 we came home for Christmas and we then stayed there till the end of the war. To shelter from the doodlebugs we had to go to the basement of a warehouse in Bermondsey. There would be at least 300 people down there at one time. On one occasion we had to stay in the shelter for 3 days because there was an unexploded bomb nearby - in the grounds of the flats where we lived.

Fortunately my family and I survived the rest of the war in Bermondsey, right beside the Surrey docks which was the depository for all timber arriving in London!

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