大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Lincolnshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of John Chappell and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Chappell fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

In addition to stealing Peel Street School, the soldiers now stationed in the borough also stole our Sunday School building. It was here, in a Sunday School class, before the theft, that I first came to meet John and Ernst, the first evacuee from Kent, the second a refugee from France. Ernst had fled with his parents from Lille at the outbreak of war, leaving behind a silk manufacturing business as well as a substantial home. Ernst remained stiff and aloof, speaking little, the Sunday School teacher, Mr Pliny Hepworth, tried all he knew to bring the boy out of his shell. John, who had come from Bromley with his mother, was more open and friendly. John and his mother, however, growing impatient of the war and feeling homesick, returned to their home long before the end of the war. Some time after their departure from Morley, Mr Pliny Hepworth announced to his class that our friend John and his mother had been killed by a V2 unmanned German bomb, a cowardly weapon sometimes known as a buzz bomb. The sadness and loss were not to go away until V-Day in 1945. Yet there were happy times during the war. My father and mother taught my sisters and I to remain grateful for the mercy of having our lives remain intact as peace returned and to be proud of our heritage and the area that we came from.

One very small difficulty of the war remains in my mind to this day; how difficult it is to slice one shared apple into three equal parts for three children. My youngest sister Molly was usually offered the largest 鈥渙ne third鈥�. Throughout the war, my sisters and I never saw an orange or banana, although many other things were also never seen. These remained luxury items to look forward to in 1945. In the year the war ended, I turned 14 and left school.

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