´óÏó´«Ã½

I lived in Welbeck Road before I was evacuated. In the house there were my three brothers, my parents, an elderly Aunt and Uncle who were both crippled and me. There was only an outdoor toilet and the bath was kept under the table for space. On August 12th 1940 I joined Sacred Heart School in Kendall. I was evacuated from home to live in Kendall and when we got there all the evacuated children were put into a church hall. In the end there were only four girls left — me and three others. One of the ladies in charge bundled us into her car and we were driven towards the outskirts of Kendall. All of us were very confused because we couldn’t imagine who would want four girls about the place. Anyway, when we got to the house a woman came out and she was absolutely adamant that she wasn’t having any evacuees. The woman who was driving us got out the map and realised we were at the wrong house. Well, we all piled back into the car and we started driving again until we came to Old Sedborough Road. The house we were going to was the last house before the railway. When we arrived I thought how pretty the house was. We girls were taken round to the back entrance, I suppose it was the servant’s entrance really, where we were given to the parlour maid, the house maid, lady’s maid, cook, chauffeur, gardener and gardener’s wife to be taken care of, as the family of the house was away. We were shown up stair to our room, which had fitted cupboards, and one was a proper walk in cupboard. We had a window that looked out onto woodland, and the wall had the story of Pooh on it. Mrs Dixon who was the gardener’s wife took care of us mainly. She had red hair cut into what I suppose you’d call an Eaton crop. She changed between being very strict to overly motherly, but it didn’t bother us girls too much. We were absolutely delighted with the place. I had come from a house in Welbeck Road that only had an outdoor bathroom to a house that had four cars!

I was at the house for two years. After a little while the family came back. They owned K shoes. There was the elderly couple, Mr and Mrs Somervell, and their two grown-up children, neither of which had married. They were in their mid-forties. We referred to them by their first names — Miss Ursula and Mr Malcolm. We usually called Miss Ursula Miss Ursey. Mr Malcolm got married the next year at the Anglican Church, and I remember we were bowled over that anyone so old could get married! When Mr Malcolm was courting his girlfriend the four of us would lean over the edge of our balcony to see if he would kiss her. The first time he did we all made so much noise that they heard us! In the playroom and the hall they had parquet flooring. Mr and Mrs Somervell would come and read aloud to us — they read Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome.

The family were all very well spoken and they had a way of adding adverbs to all of their adjectives, so ‘What a lovely morning!’ changed into ‘What a perfectly lovely morning!’ Unconsciously, we started to mimic them, so when we got home all our ‘perfectly lovely mornings’ earned were eye-rolls and strange looks from the locals! At home if we had wanted someone we’d just have shouted their name, but Miss Ursey always said ‘Malcolm! Cooee, darling!’

The food we ate was very basic. We had a German cook and she was very keen to teach us what food could be made out of all your usual garden plants, so the four of us were often sent out into the garden to fetch dandelion leaves and other such things to make salads. Miss Ursey wanted us to learn all about different flowers so we were supplied with presses and paper and we collected flowers from the gardens.

Our school was a place called Zion Hall. There were about four forms in the junior school. Next-door was a café where we often went. When you were offered pudding, the waitresses would give you the choice of ‘Fruit taht and custad’ or ‘Apple crumble and custad’. We enjoyed the waitresses’ accents just as much as the meal!

Mr Dixon, the gardener, had to go out fire-watching in Kendall some nights so one of us girls would go and sleep downstairs with Mrs Dixon. We used to hate it because their rooms were always freezing so Mrs Dixon would put a hot brick under the bedclothes, and every one of us girls got themselves burned on that brick! We had a very strict bedtime and getting up time. We were up at seven in the morning. It was a shock to the system at first because my parents had never been that strict about bedtimes. Mrs Dixon fed us in the basement room, and if we dropped any crumbs on the floor we had to pick them up. Other than keeping our own bedroom and the basement tidy we didn’t really have any chores to do. Every Sunday the chauffeur, Mr Braithwaite, would drive us into Kendall where we’d spend our pocket money from home.

I only saw my mother once in the two years I was there. The first nights were awful — I missed my mum a lot. I was a great reader but at home it was seen as a waste of time. While I was at Broom Close House I read David Copperfield. I rationed myself to ten pages a night because I didn’t want to finish it. In the loo there was a bookshelf with two books on it. I remember Mr Malcolm would go into the toilet and when he had finished I would go and read the book he was reading. One of the books was a book of poems. The poem I remember most was a poem called Check by James Stevens. It began:
The night was creeping on the ground;
she crept and did not make a sound
until she reached the tree, and then
She covered it, and stole again
Along the grass beside the wall.
In the gardens there were tiny wild strawberries that we used to eat. In the spring the garden was a mass of daffodils. The gardener took great care of the gardens. I thought that the parlour maid, Mary, was very beautiful. She was tall and slim and she would flit down the stairs with her little cap and feather duster.

We used to play at the bottom of the orchard garden. There was a stream and we would spend hours playing there, building bridges and dams.

There was an outbreak of scabies among us four girls and I was sent away into quarantine. When I got back I slept in the room next door to Miss Ursey and she gave me a whole tin of fruit drops. It won’t seem like such a big thing now but back then it was living in the lap of luxury if you had a whole tin of fruit drops!

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