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Due to the war, a lot of children were evacuated from the city to the rural countryside. They had friends or relations who were offering to accommodate them there was an influx of evacuees to our school in the countryside. They taught us new games to play and they learned new skills from us we all got along very well they were very dramatic telling us the magic of city life before the blitz. We were more advanced in some ways, as we expected to help on the farm haymaking, gathering potatoes, fencing to keep sheep in, and many other chores. The evacuees were afraid of the cows, sheep and horses, even the more tame animals such as geese, hens, or turkeys. However they soon became familiar with the farmyard animals. We took good care of our books, as paper was scarce, and our books were handed down to the next class. We went barefoot school in the summer and loved the wet days splashing in the puddles.

June Bonner’s story

At the age of seven, I was playing with a friend called Olive in her garden, playing Doctors. She was the doctor and I was the patient. Olive’s mother was making plum jam. As Olive administered some plum juice to me as medicine, air raid sirens started to howl. I was sent home and air raid wardens were walking up the middle of the road. Loud howlers saying war has been declared sounded. Everyone was subsequently issued gas masks which we kept in cardboard boxes and took to school with us everyday. We also had to practise to see how quickly we could get them out of the box and onto our faces if necessary. Anderson shelters were concreted in to back gardens. At the start of an air raid, we would run down to them and stay there until the all clear siren went off. The outside of the shelter was made to look like a garden with earth and flowers. At a later date, Morrison shelters were assembled in the house like large cages. A feather mattress would be put on the floor and that’s where we slept. Very few men were around as call up for the forces was compulsory. Everyone had an identity card and a ration book full of coupons that could be exchanged for food. There was not much variety. Eggs were in dried powder which had to be mixed up with water. Fruit was scarce and kept under the counter for regulars. Sweets were rationed at four ounces a week. Children were taken from parents for evacuation away from large cities. Mum, Eileen and I went to County Durham, but we only stayed a month, as we all got head lice. Dad came home on army leave and said the place was not too clean. We would take our chances back home. Bombs surrounded our house. Three doors away, two houses were demolished. Ten houses in the opposite direction were hit directly. One was hit on the Anderson shelter in the garden and a whole family killed. A landmine at the top of the road hit the two brewers’ pubs and killed all inside. There were a couple of incendiary bombs on the allotments which made huge craters. In 1945, a lot of Irishmen came over to do war damage repairs. Your brother James was in charge. I got the job of cleaning his office windows, as his site hut had been erected on number 112 of 114 houses that had been bombed. And guess what, I am still cleaning his windows!

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