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I was evacuated at 13, in 1939, the very breakout of the war. A group of us from school of the same age went off to a place called Belbroughton in Worcestershire, not far from Birmingham. We didn't know what we were going into, and I felt very excited.

I was going to miss my parents, and I was worried about younger brother who was only a few months old, but I was also very happy at the thought of being away from mum and dad.

Forty from our school went. We were picked up by coaches early in the morning. We each had a brown carrier bag with two tins of bully beef (what we called corned beef), biscuits, and fruit wraps.

We were deposited in the local village school around mid-day. It was a real country village, tiny. We sat at the desks. Some of the children wanted their tins opened so they could eat.

Villagers came in during the afternoon to pick children up. They'd already registered for how many they'd take, and they got to choose which children to take. I didn't like being scrutinized in the way we were — let's pick the prettiest ones, etc. It was mostly women who came in, or women and husbands, and they mostly wanted just the one child.

But we'd been told by our parents to stick together if possible, you'd be safer. Strange enough to be in these other people's homes.

Barbara and I, we were neither of us particularly ugly, certainly not dirty, but couldn't understand why we weren't going anywhere. The afternoon passed quickly. Most took single kids. One or two had pair. Until we were the only two left in the room.

The lady who was helping in the school with one or two teachers, called Margie, was a schoolteacher but not from there. She was going to take two, but being busy hadn't got round to choosing yet.

She said 'You're lucky' and laughed.

'Why?'

'Cause you're coming home with me!'

And we liked the look of her. She lived about a mile walk out of the centre of the village, with Aunt Emily, her 85-year old grandmother. Aunt Emily was 4ft 10, so brown with sun and weather, and she wore a cow-gown with a big rope round her waist, like farmers used to wear. She was very country. I couldn't understand her for a week.

She looked at us under her eyes, and asked how old we were, and were we hungry? We had roast beef and runner beans. We thought this was great.

At 8pm maybe there was a knock at door.

Someone wanted two messages delivering to the two big houses we'd passed on the way here. It was maybe an air-raid warden. But Margie and Aunt Emily said they were both busy.

I opened my mouth and said 'Well, we can take them, we're used to the dark!' which we weren't at all, just showing off.

Barbara wasn't too sure about going. But Margie said alright, and Aunt Emily said 'They can't come to any harm.'

We were given these brownish envelopes to take. It felt very secretive, and we thought we were already wining the war.

So on our first night we were floating down this hill, couldn't see where we were going at all. But we found the houses and we did deliver the messages. In one house they gave us greats mugs of cocoa, and in house opposite the same!

We thought it was a very big adventure, but it was nothing of course.

(Transcribed by Joachim Noreiko)

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