大象传媒

One Boys War (Part 1) on being evacuated

On my 11th. Birthday I was attending Holy Trinity church school in West Bromwich. War had been declared with Germany a few days earlier and everyone was on high alert. It had been decided to evacuate the children as quickly as possible and on the 6th September 1939 we were all assembled outside the school then shepherded on to several special buses, complete with labels, gas masks and food for the journey. Parents were watching from the pavement as we settled down in our seats and I noticed several of the mothers were weeping. After waving us goodbye we started off to (we didn鈥檛 know where) and after all the excitement of getting away we began to realise that we did not know when we would see our parents again or worse, if they would be killed in an air raid. After about an hour or so, we arrived at a village called Alrewas where we were escorted into a place called the 鈥淥dd Fellows hall鈥� and told who we were going to be boarded with, which in my case was a boy called Reg who was in my class at school and who was to became a very good friend and playmate.
The billeting officers then took us to the house, which had been allocated to us, which was situated on the outskirts of the village. The people who lived there (Mr and Mrs C.) were quite nice but I don鈥檛 think they were used to children and, I think, were a little reluctant to take the evacuees. They had a large garden and we soon noticed that there was a damson tree the other side of the fence. Reg helped himself to some damsons much to the annoyance of the neighbour so that was a good start.
Later, we had a mooch round to see how the other evacuees had fared. Another friend from school named Ray had really struck lucky; he had been billeted at a farm (Mr and Mrs Dolman). in Fox Lane. It was more of a small holding than a farm really, they had a dairy cow and an old sheep some geese and ducks but they also owned several fields around the farm in which we would roam and play to our to hearts content in the months to come.
The first night at our 鈥渄igs鈥�, I was terribly homesick and was worried about my parents being bombed. I am ashamed to say I cried bitterly, blundering around the dark bedroom. But nobody came. Reg, who was obviously made of sterner stuff than I, settled down O.K. and eventually helped me to do the same.
The next morning we were all taken to the village school. For the first week we were to have our own teachers who had travelled up from West Bromwich, so that we did not feel too strange with the rest of the school. In spite of this we soon became 鈥渆asy meat鈥� for the local school bullies who had a down on the evacuees, and we had a pretty hard time for the next few days. I noticed Ray one day with blood pouring from his nose after being picked on.
After school one day, news got around that there was to be a fight between one of the evacuees named Geof and a local lad and a crowd of us made our way after school to the sports field which was to be the venue of the event. Geof was by far the smaller of the two but was winning hands down and I found it rather strange that all the local girls were shouting for him rather than the local boy. When the fight was in full swing one of the lady teachers on her way home and attracted by the din, intervened and broke it up telling us that we ought to be ashamed of ourselves etc. etc. I think we could claim a moral victory.
After our own teachers had retuned to West Bromwich we were integrated with the rest of the school. The headmaster (Mr McKnight.) was a disciplinarian and I remember being caned by him for nothing more than running into school. It was probably a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Mrs C. had a Labrador called Laddie and her friend a King Charles spaniel called Nip and after tea on Sundays we often went for a long walk with them. I will always remember strolling across the fields in the Autumn sunshine with skylarks singing above and the sound of the bells from the distant Alrewas church drifting across the fields, rising and falling on the warm evening air, calling the villagers to evensong. It is difficult to describe the feeling of profound peace and tranquillity of that moment.
Although Alrewas was not a great distance from West Bromwich, there was quite a difference between the dialects. The locals often used to take the micky out of us with our Black Country twang, whilst they had a North Country accent which, at times, we found difficult to understand. A case in point was one day when a local boy was trying to tell us where there was lots of conkers, he kept saying what sounded to us like 鈥渢hey were by the cowslices.鈥� We eventually found out that what he saying was鈥� by the council houses鈥�.
The winter of 1939 was a particularly bad one with heavy snow and hard frosts. The canal, which ran next to the school, was frozen solid and we were allowed to go sliding on it after school.
About this time some workers arrived and dug trenches at the back of the school, these were about 6 feet deep and there was great excitement in the class when we had the practice air raid alerts signalled by a couple of rings on the school bell. We were told to file out in an orderly manner with our gas masks and jump into these trenches, which were deeper than we were tall. Mind you it was better than having lessons.
Our parents visited us every few weeks arriving by various modes of transport. My parents had the use of a van while Reg鈥檚 dad came on a motorised pedal cycle. Parents were not encouraged to come into the house so we usually spent the time going walks with them or playing football in one of the fields. I remember that Reg鈥檚 dad never failed to bring us both a bag of sweets each time he came in spite of the rationing.
We had a rare treat one day when Mrs C. and her friend took Reg and I on the bus to Lichfield to do some shopping. One of the sights I always remember as we were walking around the town was a squadron of spitfires banking round the Cathedral spire. It was awe-inspiring and I remember thinking this country must be safe with those around. In the afternoon we went to the pictures to see 鈥淨 planes鈥� after which we had some tea at a local caf茅 before catching the bus back 鈥渉ome.鈥�
Mr C., who owned a slaughterhouse in the village didn鈥檛 have a lot of time for us and always seemed to be preoccupied with his business. Reg and I had noticed that he always shaved with a cutthroat razor, which he used to hone on a strop hanging in the kitchen. One day when he was out, we thought we would try to sharpen our penknives on his strop. It didn鈥檛 make much difference to our penknives but it certainly made a difference to his strop which had cuts all over it and was more or less ruined. Needless to say, he went bananas when he found out but, all credit to him, we got away with a severe telling off.
As Christmas approached most of the evacuees returned home for the holidays. It was the first time we had been home since September and we were excited by all the barrage balloons in the skies as we approached Birmingham. Apart from this little had changed and things seemed more or less normal. After the Christmas holidays we returned to Alrewas taking as many of our Christmas presents as we could carry.
As the snows finally began to melt away in the fields they were replaced by floods and I remember Reg and I spent hours in our wellies in 鈥淲alk field鈥� floating pieces of wood up and down imagining they were boats navigating the various waterways.
In the late spring of 1940, we were informed by Mrs C. that they were moving to a farm at Fradley (the next village) and that Reg and I would be moving to a new place. This turned out to be a small cottage a short distance away owned by Mr and Mrs. T. The cottage had only two bedrooms and there were already three more evacuees living there, two girls, (Mary and her young sister Gladys who we used to call googie), and a young boy, (Frank) aged about 7, so it was a case of the boys in one room, the girls in the other. I think Mr and Mrs T. had a bed down stairs.
We had a great time moving, Ray had borrowed a handcart from the farm and Reg and I loaded our belongings on the cart and Ray trundled it down the road with us sitting on top much to the amusement of locals.
Mrs T. was a big woman who ruled the roost and was quick to blame us for any thing that went wrong. She allotted jobs to do like weeding the garden and such and we had to do these before we were allowed to go out and play on Saturday mornings. One day whilst we were all having a meal, her dentures broke and she took the two bits out of her mouth, held them up, in each hand, and said to us 鈥渢hat鈥檚 your fault for hugging me too tightly鈥�. On another occasion, the ceiling collapsed over the kitchen table and when Reg and I came downstairs she was sitting at the table covered in plaster. Poor Reg got the blame this time being accused of dropping his case in the bedroom and loosening the plaster. Another time she had been telling Reg and I off for something or other when she went to spend a penny in the toilet and broke wind rather audibly. Reg and I, waiting outside, looked at each other and fell about giggling. Frank had the misfortune of wetting the bed once or twice, as did a number of the younger evacuees, and on each occasion Mrs. T. would slap his bare bottom until it was bright red, all the time shouting 鈥測ou dirty scruff you dirty scruff.鈥�
To be fair to Mrs. T. though, we were too young to appreciate the way she coped with having five hungry mouths to feed on whatever her allowance was and seeing we were always clean and tidy before going to school. She often used to walk round the village with the five of us in tow and would proudly say to people she met, nodding in our direction, 鈥渕issus Brown鈥檚 night out鈥� followed by 鈥淚 luv em all鈥�.
On Saturday mornings when we could get away, we used to walk down Fox lane to a little stream and fish for sticklebacks and red butchers with our nets and jam jars. At the end of Fox lane was what was known as the marl hole which was used as a refuse tip and was full of water and what we loved to do was to pick up some stones then quietly creep to the edge where dozens of rats would scuttle down the bank into the water which we then pelted with our stones. One day we heard a sort of squeaking sound coming from the grass verge, and being curious, pulled the grass away and digging down into the soil, we found a nest of baby field mice. They were only about one inch long with no fur. We took two of them 鈥渉ome鈥� and put them into matchboxes from the refuse tip hoping to keep them as pets. We then hid them in Mrs T鈥檚 shed and promptly forgot about them. A week or so later there was a terrible smell in the shed and Mrs. T demanded to know what we had got in there. We later found the skeletal remains of the field mice and hurriedly disposed of them before she learned the truth.
There was quite a bit of excitement in the village one day; people were flocking down to the village square so we joined them eager to find out what was going on. It turned out to be a dozen or so of the older local men being paraded by an army drill sergeant. The locals had LDV arm bands (later to become the Home Guard) but no uniforms nor rifles and were 鈥渁rmed鈥� with broom stales or walking sticks. It was quite comical really especially when they dropped their 鈥渞ifles鈥� or turned the wrong way and a few titters could be heard amongst the onlookers not appreciating the seriousness of it all. We got told off afterwards for watching them and had to promise not to do it again.
We had a bit of a scare one night when I was awakened by the sound of an air raid siren. It was the first time I had experienced an air raid warning and was a little scared and not sure what to do. I woke up Reg and the girls and came down stairs. We were totally unprepared and nobody knew what to do, including Mr and Mrs T. She seemed more concerned about her canary than anything else and kept trying to calm the bird down which was doing his nut. We all finished up sitting on the floor shivering. Fortunately the all-clear siren sounded after about half an hour. I think it was probably a false alarm. So began the first experience of what was to become the norm in the next few months.
The summer that year was glorious and was probably the happiest time for me since being evacuated, in fact in my life, long sunny days spent roaming the fields with Reg and Ray having all sorts of adventures. Mr Dolman was a lovely old man and at times let me accompany him with his shotgun to shoot a rabbit or two for the pot. He usually missed. At other times I would spend hours with him in his shed chatting away while he made baskets with the osiers he had collected. On the farm there was a metal plate sunk in the ground where they used to smash bits of crockery with a cast iron hammer for the chickens, this apparently being necessary in their diet to help them to make the shells for their eggs. One was a bit slow getting out of the way one day and the hammer smashed its upper beak making it impossible for it to pick up corn from the ground. Most farmers would have wrung its neck and had it for dinner. Not so Mr Dolman, he used to sit the disabled chicken in a sack of corn where it managed to feed itself quite happily.
Our parents still used to visit regularly but we used to get a bit cross sometimes when they turned up as it interrupted our games.
The local girls from the village started taking an interest in us during the holidays and we used to have fun swapping dirty jokes with them.
About this time, work started on the construction of a large airfield at Fradley for the American 8th air force and the people round about were a bit concerned about it becoming a target for German bombers.
In the late summer, the local farmers began collecting the hay and we had a real exciting time helping to load the hay onto the carts. When the carts were fully loaded it was quite high to the top and we helped each other to scramble up on top of the hay for the journey back to the farm. We all felt very proud as we passed through the village waving to all the people who came out of the houses to watch. It felt rather precarious up there with the cart lurching from side to side to the rhythm of the horse鈥檚 gait.
I came back home during the August holidays little realising that I would not be going back again to Alrewas. My parents were not too happy about certain things there and had already decided that I should remain at home. Reg鈥檚 parents had also decided that he would not be going back either.
A few nights later, we had our first air raid, the sirens had already sounded and shortly afterwards we heard the unmistakable sound of German planes overhead. Then the anti aircraft guns opened up, making the hell of a racket. My uncle dashed to the front door to see if he could see anything and shouted to us to come and have a look. Hanging in the sky were two flares, apparently from a German plane, slowly dropping down a short distance away. It was an eerie sight and one that I shall never forget although it was nothing compared with what was to come in the following months. But that is another story.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.