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Two Sisters Separated by Evacuation.

In June 1940 my sister aged eleven and myself aged fourteen were evacuated from
Clacton with the Clacton County High School. We had just one week to prepare and make our sad farewells. Our parents gathered at the railway station to wave us off, not knowing when or if they would see us again. No one knew where we were going. As the train pulled out of the station my mother ran along beside it begging me not to let my young sister out of my sight, then she disappeared behind a cloud of smoke.

After a very long, hot journey, we eventually arrived at Kidderminster in Worcestershire, but it then transpired that Kidderminster was a garrison town and could not take evacuees. We were taken to a cinema where we were kept for over three hours while billeting officers went round the surrounding villages commandeering beds.

Unfortunately no one had known that we were being taken to different villages in our year groups, and I saw my sister in the first batch to be taken away. I tried to call out to her, and one of the staff seeing my distress got a hurried message to her, telling her not to write to mum until I had time to explain why we were not together. I was taken to a small village four miles outside Kidderminster. We were led down the lane by the billeting officer watched anxiously by the locals, who sat on a low brick wall swinging their legs, and no doubt contemplating what impact this invasion would have on their village.

As there were no telephones available to us, and staff had no cars, the only communication was when a member of staff bumped into another member of staff as they changed buses in Kidderminster on their way to teach their next lesson. It was three weeks before I located my sister in a village fifteen miles away, and by this time my parents were quite desperate. They would have been far more worried if they had seen the conditions she was living in. (Read ‘A4399572 If no one else wants her I’d better take her’)

Eventually my parents sent my bicycle so I could visit my sister but it was a long lonely journey through unknown country lanes in the winter and having lived in Essex where we have no hills, the hills in Worcestershire were very challenging. When I arrived, there was no hospitality and I was appalled at the living conditions, one room up and one down, sharing a bedroom on the floor with the daughter and her mother, a cold lean to kitchen and toilet down the garden.

There was no care or support and because schooling was in the evenings when the local school had finished, my sister was made to work in the fields during the day, lifting potatoes or picking peas. She was always hungry and lost a lot of weight. Eighteen months after evacuation we were allowed to go home for Christmas holidays and when my parents saw my sister, they refused to let her return. This distressing experience had a profound effect on the rest of her life

I still feel very angry that the people responsible for her welfare allowed this to happen, and I feel very guilty that I did not take action to change the situation, but I was only fourteen, fifteen miles away, and there was a war on.

Pat Oakley.
This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by Pat Oakley from Crawley,with her permission and she fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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