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Burton, Edna.M.,29-10-05

I belonged to a youth club in London in Camberwell, which was run by a young Methodist Minister named Butterworth. He decided to find a house in the country to evacuate some of the younger members of the community: and he got in touch with Lord Chumbley of Whitchurch who owned a house called Barbia, just outside Whitchurch,and four officers of the club,we were all eighteen — nineteen year olds,came down to whitchurch to spend the the weekend and get the house ready for the evacuees. I suppose there were about fifty (50) of them or so; my younger brother and sister were among them and my boyfriend at the time, his mother and father were there; and we just prepared the house. They cleared all the valuables out, obviously, but we got beds in there and we had to make up the beds to get itall ready over the weekend: and then on the following weekend they brought them down by coaches, and really that all there is to it.
It was my first time coming to Shropshire, and taking over the house - as it were. I loved it but never really came back until 1987.I always wanted to but it was just one of those things when you r London based; you don’t get out of London very much. The nearest I came was Abergavenny in Wales.But I always remembered it and always wanted to so when my daughter in seventy something I moved down when my grand-daughter was born, Holly Burke, in 1987.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Mr.M.J.Greene of the B.B.C.radio Shropshire CVS Action Desk and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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