大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from CSV Solent on behalf of James Barnes and has been added to the site with his permission. James Barnes fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was one of the many young children whose education was seriously affected during the Second World War.

In September 1939 at the age of seven years, I was evacuated with other pupils from Western District Infants School, Southampton to Ferndown in Hampshire. Whilst at Ferndown, I attended part-time classes at the village school with the local children.

Due to the lack of hostility on the home front during the early part of the war and, being unhappy at Ferndown, I returned to Southampton. At this date, all the state schools in the area were closed and parents had to seek alternative places of learning for children who remained in the town. This situation resulted in numerous privately run schools being set up by retired teachers, or those teachers who had not been evacuated, in their own houses. These "schools" usually catered for up to a dozen part-time pupils of which I became one.

During the end of November and beginning of December 1940, Southampton suffered heavy bombing and much of the town centre was destroyed. This lead to my parents sending me to Aldershot (which at that date had escaped the bombing) to stay with an uncle and aunt. There I attended the East Side School where I continued a somewhat disjointed education.

After a short period in Aldershot, I returned to Souhampton to find that my parents had rented a house in Chandlers Ford where I attended the local junior school. Unfortunately my parents could not afford to maintain two homes, one in Southampton and the other in Chandlers Ford, which resulted in them renting a bed-sitting room in Botley. Again I changed schools, this time to Botley Village School.

During 1942, my family returned home permanently but travelled every evening by bus to the countryside, where we stayed in a small farm cottage, returning home each morning. This enabled me to retrun to a somewhat normal education at Western District Secondary School for Boys. At times, lessons were interrupted by the sound of air-raid sirens, when, without due panic, I with the other children were marched to the shelters like rows of soldiers. Juniors were taken to the surface shelters where we usually had stories read to us, whilst senior pupils were accommodated in semi-underground shelters where lessons continued. Inside, the latter shelters were like a tunnel with continuous benches each side, which made teaching extremely difficult. In 1944, my father being unhappy with my progress at Western District Boys School and assuming I would take up a career in commerce, enrolled me at Clark's College, Southampton.

However, in early 1945, it was decided that I should endeavour to obtain a much broader education by seeking a place in one of the local grammar schools. Fortunately at this date, Taunton's School had just returned to Southampton after being evacuated to Bournemouth and I was extremely lucky to pass the entrance examination. Attending this school provided me with the grounding in the elements of a sound education which was lacking during the war years.

I, like many of those children living in towns and cities affected by the bombing, also suffered from lack of sleep. I was lucky as my parents had the usual small domestic air-raid shelter in their back garden, but other less fortunate children had to take refuge in public shelters during the night. However, during winter months my parent's shelter would flood with rain water which prevented its use. On such occasions, I slept in my normal bed but when a siren sounded, my parents and I would rush downstairs to take cover under the dining-room table. It was thought that this would offer some protection against falling masonry if the house suffered any bomb damage.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.