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Iris Plenderleith, younger sister of Vera, recalled her evacuation to Darwen and stories concerning her brothers and a couple of incidents at their father’s off-licence in Ashton New Road, Clayton. Iris sat her GCEs at the same time as her children then went into the Civil Service.
I was 13 when the war started. My twin brother Eric, younger brother Alec and I were evacuated from St Peter’s school, Blackley [North Manchester], with our gas masks on our shoulders and sandwiches for three meals. But we only went as far as Darwen [Lancashire] and we never even opened the sandwiches. I was homesick, though, and came home early. The girl I was placed with got visits from her mother every week, but our mother had three to visit and she had to see the youngest one first.
Eric eventually worked on the railways and was such a good worker that they wouldn’t let him leave, but he wanted to go in the Merchant Navy. He sold his identification and, late one night, stowed away in a ship berthed at Manchester Ship Canal. He came out of hiding once it set sail, but it was only going for fuel! He was taken to the captain and the police were sent for to escort him home to our off-licence in Ashton New Road. The officer who accompanied him was rewarded by Dad with something alcoholic. I don’t know what it was, but he agreed to try and help Eric get his release from the railways, which he did, and my twin brother finally got into the Merchant Navy.

Another memory concerning the off-licence was when Dad brought a heavily pregnant mongrel home. He put her in the beer cellar and went to bed. The next morning we got up and there were six puppies and their mother rolling round drunk.
During the war, our eldest brother Jack was serving with the 1st Airborne Division and my parents received a telegram to say he was missing. Needless to say, we were worried until we heard Lord Haw Haw give out the names of those captured, which he did on every broadcast. Mum heard his friend’s name mentioned and knew that if he was safe, so was Jack. She was right. We received a letter from him two days later.
Our younger brother was evacuated several times, with varying results. Once he was at the home of a very posh bank manager in Mobberley [Cheshire], but the evacuees weren’t allowed to eat with the family in the dining room — they had to stay in the kitchen.
Another time, Alec and his friend Arthur Kenyon were in a camp. They shut their eyes to say grace and when they opened them their tea had gone. It turned out that half the lads in the camp were from Borstal!

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