大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Jackie Jude of Chelmsford Library on behalf of Artin Cornish and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Evacuation

In 1939 I was 9 years old and I recall a conversation between my father, my mother and myself as to whether I should go to an aunt who lived in Chertsey in Surrey with a female cousin of mine called Vera Allford or whether I should go with my school to some place unknown in the countryside. I remember my father saying that he was sure that, whatever happened, the government would look after the children and that he felt I should go with the school. I was very fond of my school where I had been since I was about four and a half and I did not want to leave my friends anyway so I said I would prefer to go with the school. I can鈥檛 remember when this discussion took place but it was presumably sometime in the spring or early summer of 1939. I don鈥檛 remember being at all worried at the prospect of leaving my mother and father to go away. I had been on holiday away from my parents before and in any case my father had said that he didn鈥檛 think if the war came it would last above six months, but that was probably to stop me worrying about it. I am sure he must have thought it couldn鈥檛 possibly end in six months as he had been in the First World War out in France and knew the horrors of it all. It must have been about this time that we had to go and collect our gas masks because I remember going on a summer鈥檚 evening and we had to cross the local park to the school and have our gas masks fitted.
I remember that my main concern was that I should have a 鈥榞rown up鈥� type of mask. There were in fact three types: one which was fitted onto a pram and was pumped with a hand pump; another which was pinkish for toddlers or younger children and had a sort of false nose; and the other was the same type as grown ups had, which was black. I was old enough to have the grown up type and these were placed in individual cardboard boxes and were carried on a piece of string which went over the shoulder. I was living in Boleyn Road, Forest Gate which is now part of Newham in East London and my school was Upton Cross in Plashet Road. Most children were going with their brothers or sisters, but being an only child, I was paired up with another boy called Norman Horlock. There were no parents to come with us. The only grownups were teachers and one or two of their wives. So it was that on the first of September 1939 we marched out of the school in crocodile formation, through the school gates (with a number of mums at the school railings) and walked down to Upton Park District Line railway station with our white haversacks on our backs containing a change of clothing and of course our gas masks to start a journey which was to change the lives of many of us.
From Upton Park station we were transported by red District Line train across London to what I can only presume was Paddington Station where we disembarked and simply walked across the platform and onto a corridor train which was pulled by a steam engine. The train was the sort with a corridor running down one side with compartments for eight passengers with a toilet at the end of each carriage. We must have had food and drink for such a journey but I do not recall what it was, other than that a girl called June Goss in my compartment couldn鈥檛 find her orange. My orange was at the top of my haversack so I gave it to her which was the beginning of a very nice friendship. Eventually we arrived at Chipping Norton railway station in the Cotswolds. I can remember that we were all lined up against a white wicket fence and that somebody got stung by a wasp. We were then taken out onto a coach, or rather a charabanc. I recall that it must have had open sides. We were taken up the centre of town to the Town Hall where each child was handed a white carrier bag (paper of course as plastic hadn鈥檛 been invented at that time) the contents of which included a bag of sugar, a tin of Nestles condensed milk and a large bar of Cadbury鈥檚 milk chocolate. From there we were taken about four miles to a village called Churchill which was a typical Cotswold stone village. I cannot remember how many from our school there were but we all sat on benches out around the playground. A trestle table had been set up with a number of grownups around and from there names of children were called. Gradually they went off with other grownups to their own particular village until there were about a dozen of us left and we were then taken in cars to a hamlet called Sarsden which was about a mile away. Once there I recall four of us from one car got out and we were told where we were going to live. Norman Horlock and I went into one house and next door a boy called Peter Tomkins was going to be billeted and we were told then that June Goss who was with us would be going to a house about fifty yards up the road. I recall that when I protested and wanted her to stay with us I was told she would only be a stone鈥檚 throw away. I said 鈥淚 can鈥檛 throw a stone that far鈥� which seemed to cause some amusement. The house where we were going to live was one of a pair of estate workers houses and the man of the house was, I believe, named Pengell who was the butler to Lord Whyfold. He had a housekeeper and she was going to look after us. However the next day her daughter came and took her away as she seemed to be unwell. This meant that for our meals we had to go up to鈥橳he Big House鈥� where we had three meals in the servants鈥� quarters. Obviously this was not a satisfactory arrangement so later on the third day, which must have been the third of September sometime after I can recall hearing Mr Chamberlain鈥檚 famous announcement of war being declared on Germany. We were taken down to Mr and Mrs Roberts at Lowfield Farm which was about another half a mile or so down the road. It seems that Mrs Roberts had said that she would be willing to have two little girl evacuees but none were allocated to her and hearing of our plight she said that she would have us. In fact Mr Roberts, who dispensed milk from churns which hung from the handlebars of his sturdy bicycle, had seen us and related the story to his wife that there was the possibility of Norman and I being sent back to London. By the time that we arrived at Lowfield Farm I was pretty fed up with grownups not understanding that my name was actually Artin. They did not seem to believe that that could possibly be my name and I felt at nine years old quite insulted because I was suspected of not knowing my own name. So I told Mr and Mrs Roberts that my name was in fact John which, of course, is my second name and so they always called me John and most of the people that I knew in Sarsden called me John. Mr Roberts said that most children had enough uncles and aunts and we were to call them Mr and Mrs Roberts and that鈥檚 what I always called them until their death, which was many years later.
Lowfield Farm was not a farmhouse as one tends to imagine. It was, in fact, a pair of semi-detached houses, in one of which we lived and the one next door was mostly used for the storage of apples and as the dairy. There was no electricity or running water as such and the lavatory was down the garden behind the washhouse. When I say there was no running water, we did have the luxury of a pipe running from the stream in the front garden to a tap just outside the back door. The stream was fed from just a few yards away by a pipe coming out from the side of the road connected to a natural spring and was absolutely beautiful water. The occupants of the two pairs of cottages a little further down the road had to come up to this pipe for their own water supply, there being no other water for them to drink, other than what they could gather from rain butts . The only lighting we had was oil lamps and we had to take a candle to go up to bed. The cooking facilities were a fire range and a couple of rings that were heated by calor gas. The gas rings were rarely used except in the height of summer. The fire was kept going for most of the year in the kitchen where most activities took place, including having a bath in the zinc tub in front of the fire. I can recall on one occasion getting out of the bath, being dried and, after sitting down in an armchair leaping up very quickly saying I had sat on a pin. In fact I had sat on a wasp, so it must have been in September, and suffering the indignity of having a blue bag rubbed on my bottom. Norman and I slept in a big double bed with brass knobs on the ends. The washing facilities were a washstand with a china bowl on top and the bottom shelf held a chamber pot which we were told to call an 鈥榓rrangement鈥�! Outside the bedroom window was an old Blenheim apple tree.
Mr. and Mrs. Roberts were in the mid to late fifties and had three grownup children, two married daughters and an unmarried son, who lived in the house when we first arrived, but moved away shortly afterwards. There was a fairly large garden with a couple of apple trees, a greengage and a damson plum tree.
The garden had Sweet Williams and London Pride, lupins, and hollyhocks in the borders and then an area laid to vegetables. I particularly recall there being a plague of cabbage white butterflies and Norman and I going through this patch of cabbages with a watering can of Jeyes Fluid, picking off the cabbage white caterpillars from underneath the cabbages and dropping them into the watering can. For two little London boys this was almost akin to big game hunting. There were a couple of pigsties at the bottom of the garden and about half a dozen or so beehives. Beside the back gate was a large wood stack, a large grass field which contained about four oak trees, and a couple of hen coops. A path crossed this field and then continued across an arable field to the actual farmyard.
During our stay Norman and I were each given a little plot of land, about six foot by three foot, where we grew a couple of rows of broad beans, some shallots and a few other vegetables and salad crops which we proudly showed our parents on their visits to us. Coming from the East End of London as Norman and I did, living in the countryside was a whole new experience for us, quite a change of lifestyle. Just about everything was new and exciting; the wildlife, such as seeing the rabbits and all the different sorts of birds, learning their names and on the farm itself of course, horses and cows and sheep and chickens and even geese. Not long after we arrived it was Michaelmas and on Michaelmas day we had a goose for lunch. Never before had I tasted goose which I thought was absolutely marvellous. In the spring there were goslings and chicks and lambs and calves and it was absolutely wonderful. In the spring sickly or orphaned lambs were brought into the kitchen only having just been born and to keep them warm they were put in a side oven by the range to help them to survive and then fed from a feeding bottle before being placed in a tea chest with straw in the bottom. As they grew a little stronger we would be allowed to feed them and they used to get quite boisterous and in the end we had a pen out by the side of the garden where they lived as they grew up. On one occasion we had about half a dozen or so lambs there which we used to go out and feed and when they were big and strong enough they would go with the rest of the flock and eat grass. Then, of course, all through the year and twice a day, the cows would be called into the farmyard to be milked and it amazed me that you opened the farmyard gate and called and they would come up and walk into their own particular stall. There were about half a dozen milking cows and it was just amazing to me that they each seemed to know just where to go. The chain was put round their neck and they munched away at the hay in the manger waiting for Mr Roberts to come round and milk them by hand. I can see him now, sitting on a three legged stool with a pail between his legs and his head up against the flank of the cow milking them. Then, of course, from time to time there would be calves and these would have to be weaned and to encourage them to drink from a bucket you would have to put your fingers in the milk and they would suck your fingers at the same time until they could drink on their own from the bucket.
There was no tractor on the farm but three horses. There was Prince and Sharper that worked as a pair, or team, and a much bigger horse called Bess which was younger than Prince and Sharper. Mr Roberts had just one helper, a man called Arthur who always wore his cap pulled down particularly on one side. The farm was typical of its time, being about 112 acres of mixed arable and dairy farming; different of course from the vast acreages you see in East Anglia which are mostly arable. We helped a little bit from time to time on the farm collecting eggs from the hen coops or searching around the rick yard for nests that the chickens would make to lay a clutch of eggs.Sometimes we would help churn a little bit of butter or pick stalks off gooseberries or go blackberrying, but for the most part as far as I can recall, there was a great deal of play involved which very much depended on the time of year. We learned from the country boys to string and play conkers, how to make bows and arrows and we would play in the wood stack just outside the back garden and make a fort from the various tree trunks that were out there just ready for us to play with. I remember at one stage we had a pram chassis from somewhere which we were able to take out on the road, there being no traffic to speak of and by dint of leaning a bit on one side or the other we could guide it and roll it down the hill for quite some distance.
A quarter of a mile up the road there were three other houses where half a dozen other boys were billeted behind which there was a spinney and Norman and I used to go up there and play. In the spinney we built a den and used to play games in the woods there. One day we learned there were some old corrugated sheets across a couple of fields in another wood and we trooped across there and got these and started dragging them back across the field in which there was a herd of bullocks. They were, of course, very inquisitive and came running towards us, which scared the life out of us. We dropped the sheets and ran for all we were worth to a stone wall and climbed over it. We threw stones at these bullocks until they moved off and we retrieved the metal sheets to take them back to our spinney to make our den bigger and more waterproof.
To be continued.....

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