大象传媒

My name is Barbara. I was 8 years old in August 1939, just before the war started. As my family was living in London, very close to where the Barbican now stands, we were some of the first families to be evacuated. There was also a request for women to accompany the children, so my mother and I were set to go. My mother's brother's daughter, Thelma, came with us. Her mother had died young and her father thought she would be safer with us in the country.
We set off by train and arrived at a station in Norfolk where we put onto a coach which took us to our final destination of the village of Docking. We were taken to the local school where all the people from the village were gathered. They had been told they would have to take an evacuee, the vicar was in charge organising everyone. He would say loudly, would anyone like to take a girl, or a brother and sister, or two girls until eventually my mother, my cousin Thelma and myself were the only ones left. The vicar said "I suppose I'll have to take you then!", and off we walked to the vicarage.
The vicarage was a very large house, with servants quarters at the side of the building, though being war-time there were no servants there except for Doris, the housekeeper and cook.
The vicar said that we would be eating and living in the servants quarters (with our own stairs to the bedrooms) but he wanted us to join him every morning for prayers in the dinning room. He also expected us to go to church twice on a Sunday. Although he was quite kind, after a couple of months, my mother got very homesick and wanted to return to London, to be nearer her husband, my father. As he was too old to join up he stayed working in London and helped out in the ARP.
The bombing of London carried on, and so my parents thought I would be safer with my father's brother, who lived in York, and that's where I stayed for the rest of the war, going to my father's old school.
One Christmas, in 1940, my parents came up to see me in York. Thelma had gone back to stay with her dad in Edgeware, London. My brother, who was in the army also managed to get some leave and joined us in York. It was lovely to have the family together, but my parents had a nasty shock when they returned home. They turned the corner into their street and discovered their house had been bombed, and there was nothing left. Luckily though, my father had a sister living in Brixton, and as she was living alone she agreed to take them in. They found out what the system was for replacing their furniture and clothing, and managed to get some coupons. The "utility" furniture they got, was used at first in the Brixton house and they took it with them when they eventually moved to Edgeware. Near the end of the war, I came back to see my parents for a holiday, but my parents decided I should stay with them as it seemed the worst of the bombing was over. My family settled in Edgeware after the war, to be near family.

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